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Keeping Chickens Newsletter

January 2014 Vol. 2

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January 2014
Vol. 2

the sea met the land. Life developed there from lower to higher forms, and eventually there came a time when part of these organism adapted themselves to live upon the land and went farther and farther away from the coast into the interior, while other organisms went deeper and deeper into the sea. Some adapted themselves to live in colder climates on land and some went into colder waters of the sea, so that after many millions of years all parts of the earth came to be populated with living creatures.

The remote ancestors of the animals known as mammals, including man, quit the seashore countless millions of years before the ancestors of the birds - so long before, in fact, that, in comparison, it seems but yesterday that the pterodactyls, creatures half bird and half reptile, emerged from the sea and flew in the air. Skeletons of these queer creatures have been found embedded in stone and they may now be seen at museums. Naturalists have drawn pictures of them, showing exactly how they looked.

The web-like fins of these monsters, used at first as propellers in the water, slowly developed during the ages into wings with feathers to be used as propellers in the air; the tails, used at first as rudders to guide the creatures in the water, also became lighter, the blades turning into feathers to be used, as rudders in the air; the scales of the body, easily sliding over one another to promote facility of movement, became feathers, answering the same purpose in the air; the legs became longer,

because they came to be used for running and perching instead of paddling or waddling, but they still retained their scales because these appendages were equally useful in their new mode of life.

So closely akin are the reptile and birds that naturalists have classified them together under the name of sauropsida. All of them have scales either on the whole body or the legs. Another common characteristic is that they lay eggs.

We mentioned before the strongly developed instincts of hens, which take the place of the reasoning faculties. This is equally true of the other members of the sauropsida family. An interesting instance is that of the baby turtle. The mother lays the eggs on the sand some distance from the water, where the sun hatches them. As soon as the little turtle comes out of the shell it turns its head about the starts straight toward the sea. You may pick it up, roll it around and turn its head in any direction,


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Keeping Chickens Newsletter - Published January 2014 by www.Self-Sufficient-Life.com