APPENDIX 371 



water, and so his gills gradually disappeared, from 

 disuse. He was then a Reptile, somewhat like the 

 crocodile. But he did not lose his taste for fat flies 

 and juicy bugs. He began .to be more human-like. 

 He entered into contests with his fellow-crocodiles in 

 order to determine who could eat the greatest number 

 of a certain species of very luscious flies. In this 

 way he so inflated his stomach with rich diet that 

 some of the chyme oozed out through the ventral 

 surface of his bo*dy. This leakage soon attracted the 

 notice of the young crocodiles, and they began to lick 

 off this rich chyme in order to prevent the waste. In 

 this way the first milk glands were developed — so to 

 speak, by accident — and thus originated the first mam- 

 mal. 



The hot sun dried up his scales, the winds split 

 them into threads, and thus hairs were evolved. He 

 was then the lowest mammal, something like the 

 duck-mole of Australia, except that he had numerous 

 well-developed teeth. He laid eggs and hatched 

 them, and hovered his young at night. By-and-by the 

 youthful duck-mole, not liking to be left so much at 

 home by the mater familias, succeeded, after much 

 toil, through many long and weary nights, in develop- 

 ing a projection of the skin into an udder, which he 

 firmly grasped by his mouth, and thus he was carried 

 from place to place, and learned " to view the land- 

 scape o'er." 



The mother, being delighted with the pluck of the 

 youthful ancestor of future man, determined to 

 make him as comfortable as possible, and so, in order 

 to carry him with more comfort and to shield his 

 youthful back from the inclemencies of the weather 

 and from the assaults of enemies, she drew the sur- 

 plus skin of her ventral region over his body and 

 pinned it with a thorn, and, thus, in a short time was 



