284 THE LOG OF THE SUN 



and twist the delicate threads beneath your 

 wondering gaze. Then, while you scarcely 

 breathe, for fear the lovely vision will fade, 

 another and another spreads its disc and waves its 

 silvery tentacles, until the whole surface of that 

 ugly jelly mass blooms like a garden in Paradise 

 — ^blooms not with motionless perianths, but with 

 living animals, the most exquisite that God has 

 allowed to develop in our sweet waters." At the 

 slightest jar every animal-flower vanishes 

 instantly. 



A wonderful history is behind these little crea- 

 tures and very different from that of most mem- 

 bers of the animal kingdom. While crabs, butter- 

 flies, and birds have evolved through many and 

 varied ancestral forms, the tiny Bryozoans, or, 

 being interpreted, moss-animals, seem throu^out 

 all past ages to have found a niche for themselves 

 where strenuous and active competition is absent. 

 Year after year, century upon century, age upon 

 age, they have lived and died, almost unchanged 

 down to the present day. When you look at the 

 tiny animal, troubling the water and drawing its 

 inconceivably small bits of food toward it upon 

 the current made by its tentacles, think of the 

 earth changes which it has survived. 



To the best of our knowledge the Age of Man 

 is but a paltry fifty thousand years. Behind this 

 the Age of Mammals may have numbered three 

 millions ; then back of these came the Age of Bep- 



