CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



old habit of egg-laying, which is also retained to-day by the 

 most archaic living mammals, the duckbill {Platypus) and 

 the spiny anteater, both of Australia. These two ancient forms 

 connect the mammals with the extinct mammal-like reptiles 

 in several respects. The opossum, kangaroo, and other 

 marsupials, taken as a whole, represent an early stage in 

 the higher method of reproduction, for their young are 

 born in a very immature state and are subsequently developed 

 in the mother's pouch. 



Origin of the Placental Mammals 



In all the higher mammals, such as the dog, cat, horse, 

 cow, elephant, monkey, ape, and man, the internal develop- 

 ment is carried further than in the marsupials, and a more 

 extensive connection between the growing embryo and the 

 womb is established by means of the after-birth or placenta. 

 Here is another fundamental structure which man obviously 

 owes to his mammalian predecessors. 



The same is true of the breasts of the female. From the 

 presence of rudimentary breasts in male mammals (includ- 

 ing man) people sometimes infer that the remote ancestral 

 forms must have been hermaphrodites, but all available 

 evidence indicates rather that in the ancestral mammals the 

 sexes were just as distinct as they are to-day. 



The presence of breasts in the female of the human species 

 and their ability to secrete milk for the nourishment of the 

 young were among the facts which led the great Swedish 

 naturalist Linnaeus, in 1758, to list mankind within the class 

 first called by him Mammalia, and the presence of only a 

 single pair of breasts, together with other considerations, 

 led Linnaeus to group man as a member of his order of 

 Primates, which included also the apes, monkeys, lemurs, 

 and bats. 



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