fter tadpole hurtled downward
and splashed headlong into the water; their parents and the rain and
gravitation had performed their part, and from now on fate lay with
the super-tads themselves--except when a passing naturalist brought
new complications, new demands of Karma, as strange and unpredictable
as if from another planet or universe.

Only close examination showed that these were tadpoles, not fish,
judged by the staring eyes, and broad fins stained above and below
with orange-scarlet--colors doomed to oblivion in the native, milky
waters, but glowing brilliantly in my aquarium. Although they were
provided with such an expanse of fin, the only part used for ordinary
progression was the extreme tip, a mere threadlike streamer, which
whipped in never-ending spirals, lashing forward, backward, and
sideways. So rapid was this motion, and so short the flagellum, that
the tadpole did not even tremble or vibrate as it moved, but forged
steadily onward, without a tremor.

The head was buffy yellow, changing to bittersweet orange back of the
eyes and on the gills. The body was dotted with a host of minute
specks of gold and silver. On the sides and below, this gave place to
a rich bronze, and then to a clear, iridescent silvery blue. The eye
proper was silvery white, but the upper part of the eyeball fairly
glowed with color. In front it was jet black flecked with gold,
merging behind into a brilliant blue. Yet this patch of jeweled tissue
was visible only rarely as the tadpole turned forward, and in the
opaque liquid of the mica pool must have ever been hidden. And even if
plainly seen, of what use was a shred of rainbow to a sexless tadpole
in the depths of a shady pool!

With high-arched fins, beginning at neck and throat, body compressed
as in a racing yacht, there could be no bottom life for Guinevere.
Whenever she touched a horizontal surface,--whether leaf or twig,--she
careened; when she sculled through a narrow passage in the floating
algae, her fins bent and rippled as they were pressed bodywards. So she
and her fellow brood lived in mid-aquarium, or at most rested lightly
against stem or glass, suspended by gentle suction of the complex
mouth. Once, when I inserted a long streamer of delicate water-weed,
it remained upright, like some strange tree of carboniferous memory.
After an hour I found this the perching-place of fourteen Redfin tads,
and at the very summit was Guinevere. The rest were arranged nearl