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We observe, for example, in the Triassic, Oolitic, and Cretaceous strata, not only an absence of placental mammalia, but the presence of innumerable reptiles, some of large size, terrestrial and aquatic, herbivorous and predaceous, fitted to perform the functions now discharged by the mammalia.
It has the fore-feet of a land animal, and the hind ones of an aquatic one the latter only being webbed. Its tail is covered with scales like a fish, and serves to direct its course in the water, in which it spends much of its time. "On the rivers where they abound, they form societies sometimes consisting of upwards of two hundred.
It possesses also large cheek-pouches, similar in their use to those of monkeys. It is thus enabled to stow away the creatures it catches on its aquatic excursions, and to keep them there till it returns to the shore to dine. It feeds principally on fish, crustaceans, and aquatic insects.
Leads up from earliest aquatic habits of the Slavonic inhabitants to those of the present day, and is, though a long chapter, by no means a dull one. Prague, as you may imagine, had grown, despite the troubles it had passed through, both in importance and in extent.
The power of grasping was partly developed from and partly added to the old locomotor function of the fore limbs; the jerky aimless automatisms, as well as the slow rhythmic flexion and extension of the fingers and hand, movements which are perhaps survivals of arboreal or of even earlier aquatic life, are cooerdinated; and the bilateral and simultaneous rhythmic movements of the heavier muscles are supplemented by the more finely adjusted and specialized activities which as the end of the growth period is approached are determined less by heredity and more by environment.
The habits of this bird are in a great measure aquatic; and the setting in of the rains is the season in which they pair; the peacock is, therefore, always introduced in the description of cloudy or rainy weather. Thus, in a little poem, descriptive of the rainy season, &c., the author says, addressing his mistress,
The messenger had met Percival and Jack, and Percival now answered: "We shall be very glad to send any number. Do you intend to have any other besides aquatic sports? Any running, jumping, or anything of that sort? Our boys are good at all of them." "Mostly water sports, but I suppose we could have some of the rest.
They might line their seal-skin cloaks with the skins and feathers of aquatic birds; they might make their cloaks larger, and employ the same skins for other parts of clothing, for I cannot suppose they are scarce with them. They were ready enough to part with those they had to our people, which they hardly would have done, had they not known where to have got more.
Although there will always be a struggle for life between the individuals of the species, however few, already occupying any pond, yet as the number of kinds is small, compared with those on the land, the competition will probably be less severe between aquatic than between terrestrial species; consequently an intruder from the waters of a foreign country, would have a better chance of seizing on a place, than in the case of terrestrial colonists.
It is said that the Aymara Indians often make little images of frogs and other aquatic animals and place them on the tops of the hills as a means of bringing down rain. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia and some people in Europe think that to kill a frog will cause rain to fall. And ripen the wheat and millet in the field."