Animals Before Man 



largest sea-serpents known outside the columns 

 of the daily papers. There are plenty of sea- 

 snakes living in the China Sea and waters about 

 southeastern Asia, but these are mostly small, 

 rarely exceeding 3 or 4 feet in length. 



One noteworthy change in animal life is the 

 great increase of herbivorous animals. In the 

 past carnivores were greatly in the majority; 

 labyrinthodonts, crocodiles, anomodonts, and 

 a large proportion of dinosaurs were flesh- 

 eaters. Even the early birds, as shown by 

 their teeth, were all most literally birds of prey. 

 But from the Eocene onward the increase was 

 among herbivorous animals. 



Above the Eocene comes the Miocene sys- 

 tem, but the lower portion of this, together 

 with a small slice from the Eocene, is consid- 

 ered as sufficiently distinct to deserve separation 

 as a period by itself, termed the Oligocene, or 

 little recent. The record of this time is pre- 

 served in the White River beds, which cover a 

 large portion of South Dakota and a part of 

 Nebraska and Colorado, where they form the 

 well-known Bad Lands. These beds are con- 



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