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In the first stages of the Tertiary period, in the age when we begin to trace the evolution of the suck-giving animals above the lowly grade in which the kangaroos and opossums belong, we find the ancestors of our mammalian series all characterized by rather weakly organized limbs fitted, as were those of their remoter kindred the marsupials, for tree climbing rather than for moving over the surface of the ground.
Still, these ancient woods of the coal period must have had little of the life we now associate with the forests; there were still no birds, no serpents, no true lizards, no suck-giving animals, no flowers, and no fruits. These coal-period forests were sombre wastes of shade, with no sound save those of the wind, the thunder, and the volcano, or of the running streams and the waves on the shores.
The first mammals that have no pouches now appear. In earlier times, the suck-giving animals all belonged to the group that contains our opossums, kangaroos, etc. These creatures are much lower and feebler than the mammals that have no pouches.
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