food, and gradually they populated the ocean with myriads of fishes.

 

Meanwhile the plants had increased in number and they had to search for new

dwelling places. There was no more room for them at the bottom of the sea.

Reluctantly they left the water and made a new home in the marshes and on the

mud-banks that lay at the foot of the mountains.

 

Twice a day the tides of the ocean covered them with their brine. For the rest

of the time, the plants made the best of their uncomfortable situation and tried

to survive in the thin air which surrounded the surface of the planet. After

centuries of training, they learned how to live as comfortably in the air as

they had done in the water. They increased in size and became shrubs and trees

and at last they learned how to grow lovely flowers which attracted the

attention of the busy big bumble-bees and the birds who carried the seeds far

and wide until the whole earth had become covered with green pastures, or lay

dark under the shadow of the big trees. But some of the fishes too had begun to

leave the sea, and they had learned how to breathe with lungs as well as with

gills. We call such creatures amphibious, which means that they are able to live

with equal ease on the land and in the water. The first frog who crosses your

path can tell you all about the pleasures of the double existence of the

amphibian.

 

Once outside of the water, these animals gradually adapted themselves more and

more to life on land. Some became reptiles (creatures who crawl like lizards)

and they shared the silence of the forests with the insects. That they might