tadpole traces, bird feet markings, twisted branches

But Zhang’s imaginary wonderland was not a realm of peace and eternal peach-blossom spring; it was, instead, a secret library concealed in “a hermitage of rock”: “Shelves full of books are all around me. Opening the different volumes I take a look, and find the pages covered with writings in unknown scripts — tadpole traces, bird feet markings, twisted branches. And in my dream I am able to read them all, to make sense of everything despite its difficulty.”

Definition

tadpole Hide phonetics
noun [C]
a small black creature with a large head and long tail which lives in water and develops into a frog or toad