Animals Before Man 



does, all forms of animate things, or animals, 

 from the microscopic, single-celled being which 

 finds a bucket of water an ample world, up to 

 man. 



The warm-blooded, air-breathing mammals, 

 whose young are born alive * and helpless, and 

 are nursed by their mothers until old enough 

 to care for themselves, we all know. Some of 

 them, it is true, are more or less disguised by 

 adaptation to some particular mode of life, but 

 if we strip off these disguises their identity is 

 revealed, for we find them all built on the same 

 plan. There is little outside resemblance be- 

 tween the hand of a monkey, the hoof of a 

 horse, the wing of a bat, and the paddle of a 

 whale, and yet the same parts are present in 

 all. The whale wears mittens, and the more 

 aristocratic monkey gloves, but they have the 

 same bones as ourselves. Note, too, that habits 

 and place of residence are not characters ; the 

 whale is just as much at home in the water as 



* Except, of course, those extraordinary creatures, the Echidna 

 and Ornithorhynchus, included in the order Monotremata, which 

 lay eggs. 



34 



