EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION 



71 



live in the air, some live in the water, and some, as ourselves, 

 live on land. 



And throughout the history of it all we see that in every 

 case it was the fittest ancestors that were able to change their 

 habits of life, able to save themselves from extinction when the 



The Lungfish that lives both on Land and in the Water 



In 1913 this fish was sent alive from the Gambia region of Africa to the American 

 Museum of Natural History in New York City. It came ''coiled up in a kind of 

 cocoon, deeply sunken in a large clod of earth which months before had been the 

 bottom of a stream." There was an opening through the clod so that air reached 

 the fish. This kind of fish " breathes by means of gills when in the water, but with 

 a lung during the summer drought, inhaling and exhaling air as if it were a land- 

 living animal." In its degree of development it belongs with fossil fish that lived 

 millions of years ago, because it is a transitional type — a water animal that is be- 

 coming a land animal. The fish died soon after reaching New York, and its body 

 is preserved in the Museum 



struggle was on, and able to pass certain kinds of characters 

 on to the next generation. 



Thus it is that each generation takes its part in changing 

 the history of later generations. But this is not all. The next 

 chapter introduces another side of the subject. It shows what 

 the difference is between characters that can be passed on and 

 characters which can never be passed on by inheritance. 



