A tadpole. The forms Polwygle, Porwigle, Polwig, &c. occur in the 15–17th centuries. (N.E.D.)

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1835–40.  Little ponds never hold big fish, there is nothing but pollywogs, tadpoles, and minims in them.—Haliburton, ‘The Clockmaker,’ p. 321. (N.E.D.)

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1857.  They can (and will) talk with you on any subject, from cosmogony to pollywogs.—T. B. Gunn, ‘New York Boarding-houses,’ pp. 212–3.

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1862.  

        There rose a party with a mission
To mend the polliwogs’ condition,
Who notified the selectmen
To call a meeting there and then.
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ Second S., No. 4.    

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1862.  My colleague [Mr. S. S. Cox] takes to the turbid waters of low ridicule as naturally as the polliwog does to the dirty waters of the ditch. In these riled waters he swims without a rival.—Mr. John Hutchins of Ohio, House of Repr., July 5: Cong. Globe, p. 3130/1.

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1888.  Our rain-water was so full of gallinippers and pollywogs, that a glass stood by the plate untouched until the sediment and natural history united at the bottom.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 76.

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