It was on one of the early days of observation that an astounding
thought came to me--before I had lost perspective in intensive
watching, before familiarity had assuaged some of the marvel of these
super-tadpoles. Most of those in my jar were of a like size, just
short of an inch; but one was much larger, and correspondingly
gorgeous in color and graceful in movement. As she swept slowly past
my line of vision, she turned and looked, first at me, then up at the
limits of her world, with a slow deliberateness and a hint of
expression which struck deep into my memory. Green came to
mind,--something clad in a smock of emerald, with a waist-coat of
mother-of-pearl, and great sprawling arms,--and I found myself
thinking of Gawain, our mystery frog of a year ago, who came without
warning, and withheld all the secrets of his life. And I glanced again
at this super-tad,--as unlike her ultimate development as the grub is
unlike the beetle,--and one of us exclaimed, "It is the same, or
nearly, but more delicate, more beautiful; it must be Guinevere." And
so, probably for the first time in the world, there came to be a pet
tadpole, one with an absurd name which will forever be more
significant to us than the term applied by a forgotten herpetologist
many years ago.
And Guinevere became known to all who had to do with the laboratory.
Her health and daily development and color-change were things to be
inquired after and discussed; one of us watched her closely and made
notes of her life, one painted every radical development of color and
pattern, another photographed her, and another brought her delectable
scum. She was waited upon as sedulously as a termite queen. And she
rewarded us by living, which was all we asked.
It is difficult for a diver to express his emotions on paper, and
verbal arguments with a dentist are usually one-sided. So must the
spirit of a tadpole suffer greatly from handicaps of the flesh. A
mumbling mouth and an uncontrollable, flagellating tail, connected by
a pinwheel of intestine, are scant material wherewith to attempt new
experiments, whereon to nourish aspirations. Yet the Redfins, as
typified by Guinevere, have done both, and given time enough, they may
emulate or surpass the achievements of larval axolotls, or the
astounding egg-producing maggots of certain gnats, thus realizing all
the possibilities of froghood while yet cribbed within the lowly
casing of a pollywog.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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