For countless ages the insects were the only creatures able to tly: ft took much longer for nature to evolve flight-mechanism in the ther great groups of animal life, stich as the vertebrates. In time, however, certain types of reptiles hogan to evolve in the direction of flight, and in due course the air came filled with new kinds of fying animals, the Pterodaetyls, or ing lizards." The mechanism' of Than, ging: Mekhia wes" wig, ferent from that of insects. Me mad of entirely new and separate ti bs or appendages bein developed for flight as Was the case with lets, the Pterodaetyls adapted the limbs they already had, and by greatly increasing their length, and the length of the little finger in each hand, and growing web between the fingers, the limbs and she body evolved a kind of wing Somewhat resembling that which we now see in the bat.
There were very small ones as well fas very large ones, and fossils of species not larger than a sparrow have been found.
The First Flying Bird Not long after the Pterodactyls able that they were cai became masters of the supremacy was challenged bya new type of flying animal. Certs reptiles wore progressing along an new line, 'They were evolyles' into" feathers, a necessity which arose out of the slowly cooling climate of the earth. Some of these took to the trees, and, as is so often the case, the need arose of passing quickly from tone tree to another. It is probable that they began by making leaps from branch to branch. Aided by their developing feathers they passed from leaping to soaring or volplanand so, little by little, flight }was acquired, and the creature known asthe Archeopteryx, the first flying bird, came into existence.
With the impetus now acquired Nature could move more rapidly and very soon the progenitors of our modern birds began to cover the earth and fill the trees and the air—and the great flying Cretaceous Period. The—Archeoptery was not larger than a chicken, had a long lizard-like tail and jaws armed with teeth.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.