CREATION OF ANIMALS. 5 



butary streams became prolific, and brought 

 forth by myriads, in endless and strange di- 

 versity, its destined offspring, beginning, perhaps, 

 with the viewless animalcule or the senseless 

 polype, half animal and half plant, and ending 

 with the half fish and half quadruped, cetaceans, 

 and their kindred monsters. 1 Nor was the Ocean 

 prolific of aquatic animals alone, and those whose 

 habitation was the restless world of waters, with 

 all its streams, its caves, and its abysses, it 

 also gave birth to all the winged and feathered 

 tribes from the brilliant humming bird to the 

 mighty eagle and the giant vulture that people 

 and enliven the atmospheric sea, and make it the 

 field of their excursions. The Animals created 

 on this day were destined to dwell or move, 

 independent of the earth, in a fluid medium of 

 greater or less tenuity, and for that purpose 

 were fitted with appropriate and peculiar organs, 

 in one case both for respiration and locomotion, 

 in the other for locomotion only. 



Again the word of power was spoken, " Let 

 the earth bring forth" and instantly the various 

 tribes of quadrupeds issued from her teeming 

 womb, varying infinitely in size, from the minute 

 harvest-mouse 2 to the giant bulk of the elephant 

 and hippopotamus ; then also the earth-born rep- 

 tiles, whether four-footed, six-footed, eight-footed, 



1 See Appendix, note 2. 2 Mus messorius. 



