Animals Before Man 



1820 the entii^e number of known fossil ani- 

 mals, vertebrates, and invertebrates ^^as only 

 2,100. 



The paleozoic era da^vned on a world scan- 

 tily peopled by invertebrates ; it closed on 

 oceans swarming with fishes, and continents 

 where hordes of slimy creatures disported 

 themselves amid steamy swamps and tangled 

 jungles of gigantic mosses. The higher life was 

 not yet born ; the landscape was totally different 

 from that now to be seen in any part of the 

 world, utterly unlike any ever seen by man, 

 while not one of the air-breathing vertebrates 

 of that day would be familiar to us. 



But vertebrates were firmly established, and 

 from then onward the development of verte- 

 brate life was so much more important and in- 

 teresting than that of the lower animals that 

 these may well be neglected from now onward. 



84 



