GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 139 



cerning dimly dangers from above, and whatever 

 else catches the attention of a bottom-loving pol- 

 lywog. His mouth is well below, as best suits 

 bottom mumbling. 



Compared with these polloi pollywogs, Red- 

 fins were as hummingbirds to quail. Their very 

 origin was unique; for while the toad tadpoles 

 wriggled their way free from egg gelatine de- 

 posited in the water itself, the Redfins were lit- 

 erally rained down. Within a folded leaf the 

 parents left the eggs a leaf carefully chosen as 

 overhanging a suitable ditch, or pit, or puddle. 

 If all signs of weather and season failed and a 

 sudden drought set in, sap would dry, leaf would 

 shrivel, and the pitiful gamble for life of the little 

 jungle frogs would be lost; the spoonful of froth 

 would collapse bubble by bubble, and, finally, a 

 thin dry film on the brown leaf would in turn 

 vanish, and Guinevere and her companions would 

 never have been. 



But untold centuries of unconscious necessity 

 have made these tree-frogs infallible weather 

 prophets, and the liberating rain soon sifted 

 through the jungle foliage. In the streaming 

 drops which funneled from the curled leaf, tad- 

 pole after tadpole hurtled downward and 



