Page:First course in biology (IA firstcourseinbio00bailrich).pdf/428

 shown when the cow was classified (p. 9). Their care for the young, their intelligence, and their ability to survive when in competition with other animals, causes the mammals to be considered the highest class in the animal kingdom.

According to these tests, what class of vertebrates should rank next to mammals? Compare the heart, lungs, blood, and parental devotion of these two highest classes of animals.

(cat family).

The first mammals, which were somewhat like small opossums, appeared millions of years ago, when the world was inhabited by giant reptiles. These reptiles occupied the water, the land, and the air, and their great strength and ferocity would have prevented the mammals from multiplying (for at first they were small and weak), but the mammals carried their young in a pouch until able to care for themselves, while the reptiles laid eggs and left them uncared for. The first mammals used reptilian eggs for food, though they could not contend with the great reptiles. Because birds and mammals are better parents than reptiles, they have conquered the earth, and the rep-