. Birds and nature . ody and when he has anycover on his skin at all it takes the shapeof scales. A fish is a water backbonedanimal. A backboned animal is called avertebrate. A fish is therefore a water-vertebrate. There were fishes before there wereany other kind of vertebrates. They havebeen on the earth longer than birds orbeasts or reptiles. They came first, andwe have good reason to believe that thefishes are the ancestors of all the others. But when the forefathers of the landanimals found means of keeping alive onthe land, so many new opportunitiesopened out to them and they found somuc
. Birds and nature . ody and when he has anycover on his skin at all it takes the shapeof scales. A fish is a water backbonedanimal. A backboned animal is called avertebrate. A fish is therefore a water-vertebrate. There were fishes before there wereany other kind of vertebrates. They havebeen on the earth longer than birds orbeasts or reptiles. They came first, andwe have good reason to believe that thefishes are the ancestors of all the others. But when the forefathers of the landanimals found means of keeping alive onthe land, so many new opportunitiesopened out to them and they found somuch variety in their surroundings, thatthey throve and spread amazingly. Andthere came to be many kinds of them,of many forms, while the rest of the tribekept in the water and stayed fishes. And there was always a host of these,and nearly all of them had fishes for theirfood. So they fought for food andfought for place. Those who could swimfastest got away from the rest, and thosewho could move quickest got the most to. Km P N(» S oo FISHES eat. Those with the longest teeth werepresent at the most meals, and those withthe biggest mouths dined with some escaped because they had hard,bony scales, too tough to crack. Somewere covered over with thorns, and somehad spines in their fins, which they seterect when their enemies would swallowthem. And <ome had poison in theirspines and benumbed their enemies, andsome gave them electric shocks. Somehid in crevices of rock, or bored holes inthe mud, and lay there with their nosesand their beady eyes peeping out. Somecrawled into dead shells. Some stretchedtheir slim, ribbon-like bodies out in thehanging sea-weed. Some fled into caves,whither no one followed them, and wherethey lay hid for a whole geological age,until, seeing nothing, they had all goneblind. And some went down into thedepths of the sea—two miles, three miles,five miles—I have helped haul them up tothe light—and these went blind like theothers, for the dept
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