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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 17, 1903)
1 .3 r fCopyrlght. 1903, by T. C. McClure.) r I " I to lung breathing Is the one thut A I nnAnMl h now wrkrlfl f rw tht V.T t - bratts. Now this step la not to be sought between man and the lung-breathing amphibian. It Ilea between the amphibian and the fish. There must have been an animal once that passed from one form to the other the bridge between gill and lung. The frog Is a. higher amphibian. We must look to a lower form. Such a one is the salamander. We must hunt for a lizard-fish. Now our study of evolution leads us to believe that from the world of the an cient amphibians there sprang two great branches one became a land-walking form, and. Anally, man. The other became the bridge We know the link-form between am phibians and birds. It Is the archaeopteryx, the lizard-bird Its remains are fairly plentiful. We know that it had feathers and wings, a crocodile Jaw with teeth, a long llnaid tail and lizurd'a claws on Its wing bones. Bo the Imagination must picture the lizard-Ash as a half-and-half creature a thing with two lungs in its breast and gills on Its throat. In 1835 Johann Natterer discovered a living creature in the Amazonian swamps that approached these requirements. It had scales and was formed like an eel. It had fully developed gills, and it had, also, a fully developed pair of lungs and all the other apparatus for lung breathing. In cluding nostrils Scientists were still In bitter battle about this paradox (Lepldosiren Paradoxus they called it at last), when a similar Ash was found in Africa. For thirty years the two creatures were nightmares to science. Some declared that they were fish, and the lungs belied the finest theories. Some tried to relegate them to the amphibians, and they upset the whole world of amphibia. Then came Darwin. And in ten years the world began to accept the two crea tures as link-forms. Through the fossils found then, we learned that In a very remote period of the world's story, very near to the very oldest, the only existing representatives of ver tebrates were fish., Then, In the carboni ferous age, millions of years ago and yet long after that remote fish age, the am phibians appeared. Somewhere between those two periods, then, there must have occurred the change of one or more of the fishes to lung-breathing, land-dwelling ani mals. That "must have been the great time of tho lizard-fish, if the lizard-fish were the links. It would have been fine, then, had it been possible to discover fossil remains of lizard fish. If one could have laid tho bones of tho ancient creature alongside the bones of the living one, and proved their resem kO BIRD is better known than our N common quail. Not only the sportsman, but every farmer's boy, has heard it change its whistle with the changing Bea- 8ins and knows something of it habits. Its nest is a poorly built affair, at first glance, but tho bird has spent great care both in selecting s secluded spot and In concealing the eggs. Sometimes the nest is completely toofad over. Nevertheless, being bulli on the ground in the open fields it is exposed to every prowling coyote or bullsnake. We suppose this la one reason why the quail lays so many eggs. "Settings" of eighteen or twenty or even mere are not uncommon. With this large number a few can be destroyed and til! have a respectable brood of young. The young, which are born feathered, are able to shift for themselves in a few hours. Although the mother bird looks after them In about the same way that n ordinary hen cares for her brood. They are very active little fellows, being able to run with great speed. When they are tired they will crouch down and remain perfectly quiet, depending ou their re semblance to a clod or pebble for pro tection. The quail's nest may be rudely con structed, but it is a palace compared to the accommodations the nlghthawlt fur nishes for Its eggs. It does not even scratch a hollow, but deposit them on the bare ground. They are apparently ex posed, but are colored so like the sur roundings that it is almost Impossible to find them. The author once spent fifteen minutes looking for a nigl.tl.awk'3 ess where they had been found previously and it was known that they were not more than twenty feet distant. Most of us are familiar with the nesting habits of the house wren. Sometimes they choose very odd situations, such as an old hut hung under a porch or the pockot of a coat hanging on the side of a house. We know of one little Jenny wren who in eisUid on nesting in a stocking hanging ou a clothes line..' They build in a cavity of some kind and always fill It full to the brim with sticks. On this mass of twigs it lines a little hollow with horse hair or The Story of blance, the world would have had a valu able, living, demonstrable proof of the truth of evolution. Hut It seemed as if no such proof would ever be found. None of the ancient fossil beds showed a liBard-fish. Then, In 13. the land of the living link forms, Australia, produced It. And the proof was a tooth. One day Oerhart Krefft, curator of the museum of 8ydney, Queensland, received a big four-foot long carp-like fish. And this fish had gills and scales but also a lung one single lung. Now as Ir. Krefft examined the mouth of the strange monster, he found, not the ordinary fishes' teeth but only four big teeth, with their crowns indented like the comb of a rooster. And such teeth had been found long be fore fossil teeth belonging to tho dim past. The creature to which they had belonged was still unknown, but it had always been classed with tho fishes. Agassis had chris tened the unknown beings Ceratodus meaning "horn breathers." Now Or. Krefft held in his hand a freshly captured thing that was not only a lizard fish, but actually had the teeth of the lost Ceratodus. Krefft did not hesitate to name hU find Ceratodus Forsterll. Iater, when the ex pression of the caudal end of an extinct Ceratodus was found and Anally, when a well-preserved skull of one was unearthed, it was proved that the most unexpected of unexpected things had happened a crea ture that had been accounted as extinct millions of years ago, was living in the world of today. Tet for twenty years the knowledge of the living Ceratodus remained meagre. We learned that the creature used his gills to live like a fish in water during the rainy season, while in droughts he used his lungs to help him live amphibian-like In the shallow pools. But no one knew about his growth from the egg. And that was of Immense importance for the Btudy of evolution. Tho early stages of developroant of living , things in the egg are enlightening, because many creatures in this undeveloped condi tion are, so to speak, portraits of their ancestors of past epochs. Take a chicken or a canary bird out of an egg that has only Just begun to Incubate, and we find an object that has fin-like appendages and gills. So for years Prof. Haeckel urged on the world of science the Importance of study ing the egg of the Ceratodus. At lust Prof. Richard 8omon of Jena undertook the task. It kept him nway two years. It was a long fight. Floods and accidents robbed him of the fruits of his labor time and again. Rut In the end he succeeded In studying the Ceratodus step by step. And it was proved at last that the creature developed, not as a fish, but as an amphibian, pass Habits of Some of some soft material and rears Its brood. There is nothing a wren fears more than a snake, and supposing its enemies have the same dread of these reptiles, it fre quently gets a cast-off snake eldn and displays it ostentatiously around the top of its nest to frighten away Intruders. The mourning or "turtle" dove Is re markablo for its gentleness and confiding habits. It builds a rude platform of twigs for its eggs in the most exposed situations, often over a well worn pathway. If Its home is molested it pretends to be wounded and flutters along the ground In apparent distress, trying to lead the disturber away from Its precious eggs or young. Our blue kingfisher digs a hole In a high bank along some creek, some times going straight In for fifteen feet. At the end of this burrow the eggs are deposited. The kingfisher will sit on a branch over a stream by the hour, perfectly motionless. If a small fish happens to swim along near the surface he dashes In and catches the fish in his swordlike beak. Then he Ales away to some stump, takes his victim by the tail and whacks its head on the wood or pecks it until it is dead. Then, if it Is not too large, he swallows It whole, going through many com ten I quirks and contor tions in getting it down. The kingfisher is not a good housekeeper and its hole al ways smells foul from the litter of crawfish and pieces of fish he leaves lying about. Our little yellow warbler or summer yel low bird builds a beautiful tiny cup-shaped nest in a fork of some sapling, where the foliage Is thickest. He is a gentle and In offensive little fellow and forms an easy prey to that lazy vagabond, the cowblrd. The cow, or, as boys call him, the lazy bird, builds no nest of Its own, but lays its ggs In anine other bird's nest and depends ou the foster parents to rear the young, which hutch In a shorter time than Is necetrsury for other species. As soon as the young cowblrd comes from the egg It opens Its mouth for something to eat, -and from that time until it is able to shift for itself tho "adopted purenls" are kept hustling to keep It filled. The eggs or young of the birds who rightfully belong In the nest are pushed out by the interloper and left to pcrUib miserably ou the ground. the First Lung ing through the same stages that charac terise frogs. So in the Ccrutudus we now recognize a true survivor of the lizard-fishes, and thus an ancestor of man the particular an cestor that we have to thank for our lungs. And the Ceratodus furnishes an Illustra tion of how that lung developed from the gills. The African relative of tho Ceratodus swims merrily in the water and breathes honestly through his gills as long as the water lasts. When the droughts come he buries himself in the mud and breathes cheerfully through his two lungs. Itut the Ceratodus can live only in streams that nevery go entirely dry. Ills one lung is not ho able as the two lungs of the African fish. Now where the Ceratodus lives, the ex treme of drought goes only so far as to dry the main stream, leaving waterholes here and there. Into these holes crowds everything that needs water to live. Soon the densely-parked creatures exhaust the oxygen In the wnterhoiea. The water be comes foul, and the creatures that have only gills are In dire trouble. Hordes of the true fishes die. Rut the Cffratodus remains well and happy. He keeps his nostrils above the surface and breathes the upper air with his tunes. Now let us Imagine that gray, dim time when there stood mighty forests of fern and other long-past growths that we burn today as anthracite. Picture waters that experienced periodical drouths like those Australian waters of today. Now think of those ancient water holes crowded with struggling forms, and you see what an ad vantage the existence of a lung meant for the survival of the Ceratodus. Of course you will object that the mere fact that the lung was an advantage could not produce one. Where did the lung coma fiom? Ceratodus shows us. The lung did not fall on him from the blue sky. The true fish owns a well known organ the swimming bladder. This air-Inflated bladder regulates his weight for him, giv ing him the same specific weight as is that of the water where he Uvea. Anatomically tills swimming bladder belongs to the ali mentary canal. In many fish there Is an air connection with this canal. The infer ence Is simple that such an air-filled sac might have served on occasion for taking air Into the blood; that Is, fitr breathing. In certain existing forms of true Ashen we have found the little beginnings of such a development. In the Ceratodus the development became complete. Along tha. wall of the swimming bladder there began to form air-sucking blood ves sels; the mouth of the bladder began to lengthen from the depths of the canal to ward the mouth, as It was used more and more to suck in air. The air passage be Our Common Now, the yellow warbler Is not able to push the cowblrd's egg from its nest and It apparently has scruples against eating it, as a bluejay would do, so It takes a very original method to get rid of the un desirable gift which the cowblrd leaves for it. When the little yellow bird finds the lazy bird's egg In Its nest It straightway goes to work and builds another nest on top of the old one, burying the cowbird'a egg and sometimes two or three of its own eggs with it. A new "Betting" Is then layed in this new nest and the brood reared. Two-storied nests of the yellow warbler are not uncommon and In one instance a nest was found with two additions to the orig inal one. Birds' eggs present striking variations in shape and color. We suppose that these are not altogether duo to accident and that, as a rule, there is a reason for every variation. Bird which nest in cavities in trees and dark places lay white eggs, while those which nest in exposed places have them colored to Imitate the surroundings. For example, the robin lias dark bluish green eggs which blend with the surround ing leaves and they are not easily distin guished by any prowling enemy who might wish to molest them. The quail's eggs are white and conspicu ous, hence a great number are layed, and even if some are destroyed thero will still be enough left to make a respectable brood. , Birds thut nest in places where there is no danger of the eggs rolling out of the nest are usuully nearly spherical in form, for that shape exposes the least surface in proportion to the amount of material used. Kggs deposited on the ground or in a situa tion where they might easily roll away are long and pointed. Hence if they should start to roll they would not go far, but come back In a circle. Kggs of the quail, snipes and sea birds, which nest on the bare rock, have this long and pointed shape. If we take up the Btudy of the food habits of birds wo are apt to meet many surprises. Most of us think of the wood peckers ps living on the grubs and Insects which they secure from pecking holes In trees. Yet they all have a fondness for x variety of other things, and almost half of the diet of the common yellowliammer came a windpipe and the swimming Hut der a lung. Now let us think further. In the course of centuries, perhaps many centuries, some of the water holes became entirely dry. Then everything died that had not ad vanced beyond the stage of Ceratodus, the creature of one lung, needing at least some water. To picture any survivors, we must pic ture a creature that had gone beyond the old Ceratodl a creature that had reached a still higher state of conformity to con ditions, like the African two-lunged flstt that can live in sun-baked mud. And then another step. Tho water disap pears entirely and forever at last from some of tho holes. The llsiu-d-Ash that had learned to breathe with their lungs exclusively began to wriggle across coun try to seek wet places elsewhere. Now geology tells us that at this time. In the Devonian epoch, most areas of tha world held shallow waters that became smaller and smaller steadily, partly front evaporation and partly from draining away in the sands that now form our "old red sandstone." The llzard-flsh had to wander oftenor and oftener, farther and farther. The swim ming bladder lungs became strengthened more and more. Tho gills degenerated more and more. At last they appeared only In the unripe forms during Incubation "an cestral portraits" shown today In tho un born birds, and more plainly In the frog, while it Is still a "pollywog," only to disap pear entirely with growth. Tho lizard-Ash had become a lizard, an amphibian! They surely are not particularly agree able or attractive animals, these lizard fish. In the museum the layman would prob ably overlook them In his interest in the mass of fishes that seem far more curious and bizarre. And yet, how much hides be hind these oldest lung-breathers in tha world ! Millions of years ago those lizard-Ash of the Devonian or the Carboniferous age played their role the great advancement of life. Then they became almost lost. They disappeared from the lands where Culture, the Ideal sun-blossom of Nature, unfolded Itself. No tie seemed to remain between their last survivors In the swamps of Africa or South America and in two lost streams of Australia, and the line of light that began to arise In the life of earth far up ward for the animal. And yet from this line of light, from Cul ture, there grows one day the great desire for knowledge. And after the measureless rrocess'on of time It turns back to the lizard-Ash; It seeks him In his lonely Queensland wastes and helps him to a won derful resurrection. It is tho true resurrection of Naturo through the Spirit. WII.TTEMW ROEfSCIIH. Birds consists of ants which it picks up front ' the bills, on the ground or in dead trees. The author watched an English sparrow feeding her brood for four hours and during part of this time it was raining. Tho mother visited the nbst with food every two minutes (average). The male came to the nest with food for the brood but one during the whole time. When we consider that a bird works from daylight to sunset we can see what an enormous amount of labor is required and what an army of in sects will be destroyed during tho year. Birds usually vary the food with the sea sons. Some sea birds live on fish during; the winter months and changing to seeds in the summer. The English sparrow pre fers a seed diet itself, but rears its young almost entirely on insects. The owls are very rude in their table manners and d not stop to pick out the edible portions. When eating a mouse or gopher they simply swallow chunks of it bones, hair and all. Of couise part of this mass can not be digested and It is rolled into a little ball and cast up In the same way that a cow brings up her cud. These pellets will usually be found on the ground around an owl tree. The hawks and owls are preying birds, but on the whole do a great deal of good by destroying great numbers of noxious) animals. The prince of robbers and mur derers in the bird world is the shrike or butcher bird. This villtan will sneak up behind a mother bird, setting on the nest, and perk her brains out. then fly away aparently satisfied with the killing and not even stopping to eat. One of his favorlta amusements is to catch beetles and stick them on thorns along me Hedges. We suppose his Idea in these actions Is to lay up food for a rainy day or when his hunt Is unsuccessful. Birds not only prey but are preyed upoa and their coloralluu helps them in escaping their enemies. I'sually we find the upper Bide durk and the under side white or lighter in color than the back. If a hawk soars above the bird the durk back blends with the ground. If the condition la reversed and the hawk looks up at the bird from below tho light colored belly blends (Continued on Page Eleven.)