Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-10-07
The Outline of History-By H. G. Wells
/. The Romance of Mother Earth

a
tile is further stage in this detachment
from water; it is an amphibian that is no
longer amphibious; it passes through its tad
pole stage-its fish stage, that is--ln an egg.
From the beginning it must breathe in air;
it can never breathe under water as a tad
pole can do.
Now modern mammal is really sort or
reptile that has developed peculiarly effec-
tive protective covering, hair; and that also
retains it's eggs in the body until they hatch,
so that it brings forth living young Cvivipar-
ous), and even after birth it cares for them
and feeds them by it mammae for longer
or shorter period. Some reptiles, some vi
pers for example, are viviparous, but none
stand by their young as the real mammals do
Both the birds and the mammals, which es-
capped whatever destructive forces made an
end to the Mesozoic reptiles, and which sur
vived to dominate the Cainozoic world, have
these two things in common: First, far
more effective protection against changes OF
temperature than any other variation of the
reptile type ever produced, and, secondly, a
peculiar care for their eggs, the bird by in
cubation and the mammal by retention, and
disposition to look after the young for a
certain period after Matching or birth. There
is by comparison the greatest carelessness
about offspring in the reptile.
Hair was evidently the earliest distinction
of the mammals from the rest of the reptiles.
1t is doubtful if the particular Theriodont
reptiles who were developing hair in the
early Mesozoic were viviparous. Two man.
mails survive to this day which not only do
not suckle their young but which lay eggs,
the Ornithorhynchus and the Echidna and in
the Eocene there were a number of allied
forms. They are the survivors of what was
probably much larger number and variety
Of small egg-laying hairy creatures, hairy
reptiles, hoppers, climbers and runners,
which included the Mesozoic ancestors of all
existing mammals up to and including
Family Animal
Now we may put the essential facts about
a mammalian reproduction in another way.
The mammal is a family animal. And the
family habit involved the possibility of a new
sort Of continuity of experience in the world.
Compare the completely closed-in life of an
individual lizard with the life of even quite
lowIy mammal of almost any kind. The
former has no mental continuity with any
thing beyond itself; il is little self-con-
tanned globe of experience that serves it's pur-
pose and ends but the latter "picks up
from it's mother, and Glands on" to its Off
spring.
All the mammals, except for the two gen
era we have named, had already before the
lower Eocene age arrived at this stage of pre-
adult dependence and imitation. They were
all more or less initiative in youth and cap
able of certain modicum of education; they
all, as part Of their development, received
certain amount of care and example and
even direction from their mother. This is
as true of the hyena and rhinoceros as it is of
the dog or man; the difference of educabil-
ity is enormous, but the fact Of protection
and educability in the young stage is unde-
liable.
So far as the vertebrated animalc go, these
new mammals, with their viviparous, young
protecting disposition, and these new birds,
with their incubating, young protecting dis
position, introduce at the opening of the
CaincZoic period fresh thing into the ex-
panding story Of life namely, social asso-
ciatio n, the addition to hard and inflexible in
stinct of tradition, and the nervous organi-
cation necessary to receive tradition.
Copyright, 1929