GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 189 
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 
