THE FISH THAT GOT STUCK IN THE MUD
WHEN Mother Nature came back to take a look at things she was delighted
to see how well they were going.
"The trees and plants and grass are doing nicely," she said, "and so
are the fish. Now we must get some animals on land, and you, Ocean,
must attend to it for me."
"What can _I_ do?" the Ocean asked. "I haven't any animals to put on
the land."
"Then you must put some fish there, and I will see that they are turned
into animals."
"But fish can't live on the land," said the Ocean. "They haven't any
lungs to breathe air with. They can only breathe in the water."
"I know that," said Mother Nature, smiling. "You just do as I tell you,
and leave the rest to me."
"What do you want me to do?" asked the Ocean.
"Tell the Wind to blow a great storm, and wash some of your fish up
into the salt marshes. And after that, have your waves build a wall of
sand along the edge of the marshes, so that the fish and the water you
have washed in cannot get out again."
"I will do it," said the Ocean, "but I do not see any sense in it."
"You will, when I have finished," Mother Nature said.
So the Ocean spoke to the Wind, and told him to blow his hardest, and
the Wind howled and shrieked with joy and drove the waves before him,
and they danced and rolled up into the great wide marshes and carried
thousands and thousands of fish with them. Then other waves came,
carrying sand, and with the sand they built a wall all along the edge
of the marshes, so that the water in the marshes could not get out
again, but stayed there, spread out like a great shallow inland sea.
Then Mother Nature said to the Sun:
"Sun, dry up the marshes, and see what happens."
So the Sun blazed down on the marshes and began to dry them up. It took
him thousands of years to do it, for they were very large, but he did
not mind that, for he had nothing to do but shine.
The fish that had been carried into the marshes had a great time, at
first, swimming about in the shallow water quite as much at home as
they had been in the Ocean. But after a while, as the marshes began to
dry up, some of the fish got caught in the mud on the edges, and they
couldn't breathe, with their heads out of water, so they flopped their
fins in the mud, and tried to breathe the air, and at last, by pushing
with their fins, they managed to get back into the deeper water again.
Every time this happened, their fins got a little tougher and stronger,
from pushing themselves along in the mud, and their lungs got a little
more used to breathing air, instead of water, and by the time thousands
of years had gone by, and the water in the marshes was nearly all dried
up, the great-great-great-grandchildren of the first fish had got so
used to breathing air that they did not mind it a bit, and their fins
had got so used to rubbing along on the mud that they weren't fins any
longer, but had changed to short, strong little webbed feet.
Mother Nature came and looked at them, and laughed.
"You see, Ocean," she said, "I knew what I was about. Your fish have
turned into reptiles. They can live on land as well as in the water,
and they have legs and feet."
"How did you do it?" the Ocean asked.
"I did not do it. There is a wonderful law, made by God, which takes
care of all such things. No matter what sort of a life any creature is
in the habit of living, if you make him live another kind of life, he
will change himself to suit it. Your fish couldn't breathe air, when
they first tried it, but as soon as they _had_ to breathe it, this law
I speak of helped them, so that their lungs began to change, and before
long, they had grown a new pair of lungs, fitted to breathe air. It was
the same way with their feet; the tender fins they used to swim about
in the water with weren't hard and tough enough to scrape against the
mud and rocks, so they have grown tougher and stronger fins, like
little legs, to get about with. You may be sure that God knew what He
was about when He planned the Universe, and made its laws. You just
watch these reptiles we have made, and see what happens to them. I'll
be back in a million years or so, and see how things are getting along.
We'll be ready for Man pretty soon." Then Mother Nature went away to
look after some comets that had gotten lost and were dashing madly
through space, trying to find out where they belonged.
The Ocean watched the reptiles in the great salt marsh, and saw many
wonderful things. As the water in the marsh got lower and lower, being
dried up by the Sun, the mud in the marsh got harder and firmer, and
the reptiles in it, who lived partly on land and partly in the water,
found after a while that there wasn't enough water left for them all to
live in, so thousands of them crept inland, away from the sea, and made
their homes in the great fern forests, or among the rocks on the bare
hillsides and plains. And no matter what sort of a life they lived,
they changed to suit it.
Some made their homes in the soft earth along the edges of the marsh,
squirming along on their stomachs, and as they did not need feet and
legs to squirm with, their feet and legs got smaller and smaller, until
they did not have any at all, and they became snakes. Some dug holes
in the hard ground with their feet, to make homes for themselves, and
from digging and digging, their feet became very strong, with hard,
sharp nails on them. And those that lived under the ground all the
time, feeding on the roots of plants, lost their eyes and became blind,
because they no longer needed eyes to see with, in their dark burrows,
just like the moles we see digging under our lawns to-day. Some, like
the frogs and the turtles, stayed in the marshes. The frogs made holes
in the mud to live in, but the turtles grew hard shells on their backs,
so that they could carry their homes about with them, and sleep on the
open ground without any fear that other animals could harm them. Some
of the reptiles, who liked the water best, crawled out of the marshes
into the rivers, and became crocodiles, and alligators, while those
that went inland forgot all about the water, and instead of scales,
or shiny skins, like the reptiles, they grew hair on their bodies, to
protect them and keep them warm. Some, who took to living in the trees,
grew sharp claws, and long legs, to climb with, while others, who did
not care for climbing, but ran around on their four feet all day, found
that after a time their feet grew very hard and strong, and because
they did not use their toes any more, they gradually lost them, and
grew hoofs, like the horse, or the deer. And some, who liked the trees
better than the ground, because there were always plenty of berries
and fruits to be found there, stayed in the tree-tops all the time,
and never came to the ground. Their front fins had gradually become
larger, from flopping them in the air all the time, and at last, after
many thousands of years, these fins became wings, and the trees in the
forest were full of birds.
The kinds of food the new animals ate had a great deal to do with their
shapes and sizes. Some, like the deer, the huge elephants we call
mammoths, and the giraffes, who came later, grew very fond of the fresh
green leaves of the trees, and ate them most of the time. The giraffe
got into the habit of reaching up so far for the tender leaves that his
neck grew longer and longer, until now he has the longest neck of any
animal in the world.
Some animals, instead of eating leaves, or fruit, learned to eat other
animals, and so their teeth and claws got very large and sharp, and
their bodies very quick and strong, like the lions and tigers, so that
they could jump upon the creatures they ate and tear them to pieces.
Because the Earth was so warm and comfortable, and there was plenty
to eat, some of the animals grew to be very large. There were mammoth
elephants, two or three times as large as the elephants we see in the
circus to-day, with shaggy hair, and long curving tusks to fight with.
And there were animals like lizards, some of them almost as big as
whales, and others with long necks, and wings like a bat, that flew
about over the marshes, eating smaller animals, or the leaves of plants
and trees. As the Earth became cooler, many of these early sorts of
animals died out, became extinct, as we call it, and we only know that
they once lived, because sometimes we find the bones or skeletons of
them lying in beds of clay or rock.
[Illustration: BEFORE MAN
Because the Earth was so warm and comfortable, and there was plenty to
eat, some of the animals grew to be very large.]
All these changes the Ocean watched while Mother Nature was away,
and the laws that God had made to govern the Universe filled him
with wonder. Even in his own kingdom of the sea he saw strange
things—flying fish, and others that grew swords at the ends of their
noses, to spear their enemies with. And he even saw, at the very bottom
of the sea, where it is always dark, fish that grew little electric
lights like the lights of a firefly, by which they were able to see
their way about in the darkness.
When the new animals had spread all over the edge of the Earth, Mother
Nature came back to see how everything was going.
"Splendid," she said, when she had looked things over. "The plants, and
the fish, and the animals are all doing very nicely indeed. Now we are
ready for Man."