Pond Life 
earth and died out, leaving their bones 
preserved in the rocks to tell us what 
sort of monsters lived in those days of 
long ago. 
Strange as it may seem, the birds 
appear to be descended from some of 
these reptiles. There isn’t much like- 
ness, at first sight, between a reptile 
and a bird of the present day ; but from 
the remains of the earliest known bird, 
and from certain peculiarities of its 
bones, it is agreed amongst the scientific 
people who have worked at this sort 
of thing, that the present birds originally 
sprung from some form of reptile. 
Curious things they must have been, 
these early birds, for we know from the 
fossil skeletons which have been found 
that they had teeth in their jaws, and 
further, they had a long tail with many 
K nag 
