370 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



of the existence of another world, with which he 

 longed to become acquainted. So he decided that he 

 would proceed cautiously to explore the neighboring 

 land. Eiding upon the crest of the highest wave, he 

 permitted himself to be cast upon the beach much 

 higher than before. Having viewed the world from 

 that point, he regained the water as at first. His ex- 

 perience in trying to use his fins as legs gave him 

 the knowledge that they would need to be changed a 

 good deal in order to adapt them to locomotion on 

 land, and he also felt a certain shortness of breath 

 while on land which he desired to overcome, in order 

 that he might remain long out of water and make 

 extended journeys. 



By much flapping of his fins edgewise against the 

 rocks he gradually narrowed and elongated them, and 

 he also succeeded in breaking their hard parts into 

 joints. 



By holding his mouth full of compressed air he 

 succeeded in expanding a part of his gullet into a 

 sac which finally developed into a lung. After thous- 

 ands of generations, involving infinite labor, and skill, 

 and patience, he was able to claim as his birthright 

 four good legs and two good lungs; but he retained 

 also his gills, for, as yet, he was afraid to trust his 

 fortunes entirely to the dry land. He was then an 

 Amphibian — a water-dog, in his habits. 



He reveled in luxury on land. He gorged himself 

 day and night with fat flies and juicy bugs. He basked 

 in the sunshine of the cool morning, and, at noon, he 

 escaped the scorching rays of the sun by stretching 

 his weary limbs beneath the cooling shades of the Car- 

 boniferous ferns. When he first sought the land, he 

 returned regularly to the sea. But by and by he be- 

 came so wedded to the luxuries of the land, that he 

 neglected for days and even months to return to the 



