Get the full ebook with Bonus Features for a Better Reading Experience on ebookmeta.

com

Basic English 3rd Edition Julie Lachance

https://ebookmeta.com/product/basic-english-3rd-edition-
julie-lachance/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD NOW

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookmeta.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Basic English Grammar For Dummies 1st Edition Geraldine

Woods

https://ebookmeta.com/product/basic-english-grammar-for-dummies-1st-
edition-geraldine-woods/

ebookmeta.com

Basic Georgian 3rd Edition Nana Danelia

https://ebookmeta.com/product/basic-georgian-3rd-edition-nana-danelia/

ebookmeta.com

Basic Pharmacokinetics, 3rd Edition Mohsen A. Hedaya

https://ebookmeta.com/product/basic-pharmacokinetics-3rd-edition-
mohsen-a-hedaya/

ebookmeta.com

The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c 500 1492

2nd Edition Jonathan Shepard

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-cambridge-history-of-the-byzantine-
empire-c-500-1492-2nd-edition-jonathan-shepard/

ebookmeta.com
Augmented Reality Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics
7th International Conference AVR 2020 Lecce Italy
September 7 10 2020 Proceedings Part I Lucio Tommaso De
Paolis
https://ebookmeta.com/product/augmented-reality-virtual-reality-and-
computer-graphics-7th-international-conference-avr-2020-lecce-italy-
september-7-10-2020-proceedings-part-i-lucio-tommaso-de-paolis/
ebookmeta.com

America s Arab Nationalists From the Ottoman Revolution to

the Rise of Hitler 1st Edition Aaron Berman

https://ebookmeta.com/product/america-s-arab-nationalists-from-the-
ottoman-revolution-to-the-rise-of-hitler-1st-edition-aaron-berman/

ebookmeta.com

I Survived 1st Edition Bruno Vilas Boas

https://ebookmeta.com/product/i-survived-1st-edition-bruno-vilas-boas/

ebookmeta.com

The Steam Team Explains More Than 100 Amazing Science

Facts Robert Winston

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-steam-team-explains-more-
than-100-amazing-science-facts-robert-winston/

ebookmeta.com

India Higher Education Report 2021: Private Higher

Education 1st Edition N.V. Varghese

https://ebookmeta.com/product/india-higher-education-
report-2021-private-higher-education-1st-edition-n-v-varghese/

ebookmeta.com
Midian Unmade Tales of Clive Barker s Nightbreed Joseph
Nassise Del Howison

https://ebookmeta.com/product/midian-unmade-tales-of-clive-barker-s-
nightbreed-joseph-nassise-del-howison/

ebookmeta.com
This book is dedicated to my students because they have taught and
given me so much over the years.
Copyright © 2019 by Julie Lachance. All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of
this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-26-014373-7
MHID: 1-26-014373-2

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this
title: ISBN: 978-1-26-014372-0, MHID: 1-26-014372-4.

eBook conversion by codeMantra

Version 1.0

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather

than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a
trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and
to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of
infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in
this book, they have been printed with initial caps.

McGraw-Hill Education eBooks are available at special quantity

discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions or for use in
corporate training programs. To contact a representative, please visit
the Contact Us page at www.mhprofessional.com.

Trademarks: McGraw-Hill Education, the McGraw-Hill Education logo,

Practice Makes Perfect, and related trade dress are trademarks or
registered trademarks or registered trademarks of McGraw-Hill
Education and/or its affiliates in the United States and other
countries and may not be used without written permission. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners. McGraw-Hill
Education is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in
this book.
McGraw-Hill Education Language Lab App
Recordings for 50 pronunciation exercises, listed in the appendix, are
available as streaming audio via our unique Language Lab app. Go
to mhlanguagelab.com to access the online version of this
application, or download the mobile version from the Apple App
store (for iPhone and iPad), or the Google Play store (for Android
devices). Note: Internet connection required.

TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and McGraw-Hill Education and its

licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is
subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act
of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work,
you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce,
modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute,
disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it
without McGraw-Hill Education’s prior consent. You may use the
work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use
of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be
terminated if you fail to comply with these terms.

THE WORK IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” McGRAW-HILL EDUCATION AND

ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO
THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS
TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY
INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA
HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY
WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill Education and its licensors do
not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work
will meet your requirements or that its operation will be
uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill Education nor its
licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy,
error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any
damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill Education has no
responsibility for the content of any information accessed through
the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill Education
and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special,
punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use
of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised
of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall
apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause
arises in contract, tort or otherwise.
 Contents

Introduction

1 To Be: Present Tense

2 To Be: Present Tense: Negative Form
3 To Be: Present Tense: Question Form
4 To Be: Past Tense
5 To Be: Past Tense: Negative Form
6 To Be: Past Tense: Question Form
7 Exceptional Uses with the Verb To Be
8 Adjectives
9 To Have: Present Tense
10 To Have: Present Tense: Negative Form
11 To Have: Present Tense: Question Form
12 The Simple Present Tense
13 The Simple Present Tense: Negative Form
14 The Simple Present Tense: Question Form
15 Possessive Adjectives
16 The Simple Past Tense
17 The Simple Past Tense with Irregular
Verbs: 1
18 The Simple Past Tense with Irregular
Verbs: 2
19 The Simple Past Tense with Irregular
Verbs: 3
20 The Simple Past Tense: Negative Form
21 The Simple Past Tense: Question Form
22 Prepositions: In and On
23 There Is and There Are: Present Tense
24 There Is and There Are: Present Tense:
Negative Form
25 There Is and There Are: Present Tense:
Question Form
26 There Is and There Are: Past Tense
27 There Is and There Are: Past Tense:
Negative Form
28 There Is and There Are: Past Tense:
Question Form
29 Prepositions: To and At
30 The Present Progressive (Continuous)
Tense
31 The Present Progressive (Continuous)
Tense: Negative Form
32 The Present Progressive (Continuous)
Tense: Question Form
33 The Past Progressive (Continuous) Tense
34 The Past Progressive (Continuous) Tense:
Negative Form
35 The Past Progressive (Continuous) Tense:
Question Form
36 Prepositions: From and Of
37 Will: Future Tense
38 Will: Future Tense: Negative Form
39 Will: Future Tense: Question Form
40 Be Going To: Future Tense
41 Be Going To: Future Tense: Negative Form
42 Be Going To: Future Tense: Question Form
43 The Indefinite Articles: A and An
44 Irregular Verbs Table
45 The Present Perfect Tense
46 The Present Perfect Tense: Negative Form
47 The Present Perfect Tense: Question Form
48 The Past Perfect Tense
49 The Past Perfect Tense: Negative Form
50 The Past Perfect Tense: Question Form
51 The Future Perfect Tense
52 The Future Perfect Tense: Negative Form
53 The Future Perfect Tense: Question Form

REVIEW EXERCISES

54 Verb Tenses Review: 1

55 Verb Tenses Review: 2
56 Verb Tenses Review: 3
57 Verb Tenses Review: 4
58 Verb Tenses Practice: 1
59 Verb Tenses Practice: 2
60 Regular and Irregular Verbs Review
61 Grammar Review
62 Vocabulary Review
63 Word Search Puzzles
64 Scrambled Sentences

APPENDIX
Pronunciation Exercises
Answer Key
 Introduction

Congratulations on choosing Practice Makes Perfect: Basic English

for your first year of English language learning.
There is really only one way to learn a new language, and that is
to build your vocabulary, learn the verb tenses and the mechanics of
that language, and then practice, practice, practice. This workbook
was designed to help you do just that.
This workbook will help you to proficiently learn and effectively
master the strategies and methods needed to provide you with a
solid foundation in English. All the lessons are presented in a simple
and progressive format designed to help you retain the knowledge
and gain confidence by applying and reinforcing the skills acquired
throughout the workbook.
You will learn the mechanics of English through user-friendly,
interactive, and well-constructed grammar exercises. These exercises
are loaded with everyday basic words intended to help you quickly
and efficiently enrich your vocabulary and give you a firm
understanding of the lesson before moving on to the next.
Ample space is provided in each lesson for you to record your
new vocabulary words in a central location to allow you to study
these words regularly and refer back to them quickly when
necessary. Be sure to learn these words by heart as they are basic
and useful English words.
The second section of Practice Makes Perfect: Basic English
provides you with a variety of review exercises specially designed to
allow you to measure your comprehension and retention of the
concepts covered in the lessons of this workbook. Since these review
exercises are directly related to the learning objectives of this
workbook, they will allow you to recognize your achievements and
highlight your progress. They will also provide you with the
opportunity to strengthen your abilities by serving as extra practice
for the material previously studied. To assure a fair and accurate
self-evaluation of your progress, be sure to complete the entire
workbook before attempting these review exercises.
This Premium Third Edition is enhanced by 50 pronunciation
exercises, available as streaming audio through the McGraw-Hill
Education Language Lab app. These exercises provide extensive
practice of the sounds that learners of English find particularly
difficult—simply listen and repeat. The text of the thirty example
sentences for each exercise is provided in the appendix of this book,
as well as within the app.
Learning a new language is an interesting and exciting journey
that is enhanced when the learning material is presented in a
stimulating and enjoyable manner that encourages a learner to keep
moving forward.
We wish you much success and enjoyment throughout your
learning process using this workbook, and we are confident that you
will gain from it exactly what was intended: a solid comprehension
of your first year of English language learning.
Good luck, and above all, have fun.
 To Be: Present Tense

The verb to be describes the identity, qualities, or condition of a

person or object. Use the following to form the present tense of the
verb to be.

Use your dictionary to find the meaning of the new

vocabulary words needed for this exercise before you
begin. Write the words in your language in the space
provided.
Other documents randomly have
different content
why then has it become so like a fish? For the same reason that the
penguin’s wings have become so fin-like, and the seal’s arms and legs
have become flippers, namely, that during the long time in which the
whales have taken to a watery life, those which could swim best and
float best in the water have been the most successful in the struggle
for existence; and as a fish’s shape is by far the best for this purpose
the warm-blooded milk-giver has gradually imitated it, though
belonging to quite a different order of animals.

Fig. 85.

The Humpback Whale187 suckling her young (after

Scammon).

We saw this imitation already beginning in the seals, with their

bodies sloping off towards the tail and their legs fastened back in a line
with the body; but they have not gone so far in this direction as the
whales have, since they still have hind legs and furry bodies. The sea
cows, on their line, have gone a little farther, for they have lost their
hind legs, and their skin is smooth, with very few hairs upon it. But it
remained for the whales to take up the best fish-form, the old spindle-
shape, thinning before and behind, with the strong fleshy tail ending in
two tail lobes, which act like a screw in driving the body along.
 Any good drawing of a whale shows at once how admirably these
animals are fitted for gliding through the water (see Fig. 85). True,
many of them have enormous heads, but these always have long face-
bones ending in a rounded point, and even the huge head of the
sperm whale (see Fig. 87), eighteen feet long, six feet high, and six
feet wide, is rounded off above, and gradually thins away below, like
the cutwater of a ship. The eyes are very tiny and so little exposed,
that it is difficult to find them; there are no outer ears, though the bones
within are large and probably very useful for hearing in water; the
bones of the neck are seven, as is the rule among milk-givers, but they
are so flattened and firmly soldered together, and so covered with
blubber, that there is not even a hollow between the head and the
body; while to crown all, the skin is perfectly smooth so as to offer no
resistance to the water. Here, however, would be a disadvantage in the
loss of the furry covering, since most of the whales travel into cold
seas, were it not compensated by the great mass of oily fat or blubber
which fills the cells in the under part of the skin, and keeps the whole
body warm; and thus the whale, by a covering of fat often as much as
a foot and a half thick, solves the problem of a warm-blooded animal,
with a smooth gliding body, living in icy water without having its blood
chilled.
In every essential for swimming, then, whales are as well provided
as any fish, while their immensely strong backbone, and the long cords
or tendons running from the mass of muscle on the body to the tail,
give them such tremendous power that a large whale makes nothing of
tossing a whole boat’s crew into the air and breaking the boat in two.
But, though they are so far true water-animals, yet they cannot live
entirely below as fish can, for they have no apparatus for water-
breathing. The outside of their body takes on the appearance of a fish,
but inside they have the true lungs, the four-chambered heart, and all
the complicated machinery of a warm-blooded animal. Therefore,
though a whale may dive deep and remain below to seek its food, yet
before an hour has passed even the largest of them must come
floating up to the top again, to blow out the bad air through the nostrils
at the top of the head, and fill the capacious lungs with a fresh supply.
It is then that, partly because of the water which has run into the
blowhole, and partly because the rush of breath throws up spray from
the sea, we see those magnificent spouts of water which tell that a
whale is below. The older naturalists thought that these spouts were
caused by the water which the whale had taken into its mouth; but this
is not so, and Scoresby, the great Arctic traveller, states distinctly that if
the blowhole of the whale is out of the water only moist vapour rises
with the breath, while when it makes a large spout this comes from its
blowing under water and so throwing up a jet.
If, however, the whale is a simple air-breather and yet swims under
water with its mouth open, how comes it that this water does not run
down the windpipe and choke the lungs? This is prevented by a most
ingenious contrivance. At the top of our own windpipe there is a small
elastic lid which shuts when we swallow, and prevents water and food
from running down to the lungs. Now, in the whale the gristle
answering to this lid runs up as a long tube past the roof of the mouth
into the lower portion of the nose, and is kept there tightly, being
surrounded by the muscles of the soft palate. The upper portion of the
nose cavity then opens on the forehead by means of one or two
“blowholes,” as the outside nose holes are called; so that when the
blowholes are closed the whale can swim with its mouth open and feed
under water, and yet not a drop will enter its lungs.
A large sperm whale will often remain twelve minutes or more at
the top of the water, taking in air at the single blowhole in the front of
its head, and purifying its blood, and then with a roll and a tumble it will
plunge down again, and remain for an hour below, trusting to a large
network of blood-vessels lying between the lungs and the ribs to
supply purified blood to its body and retain the impure blood till it
comes up again to breathe.
But the smaller whales and porpoises, which play about our
coasts, have to come up much more often, and even when they are
not tumbling and jumping, as they love to do, you may see them rising
at regular intervals as they swim along, their black backs appearing
like little hillocks in the water, as they “blow” strongly from their single
nose-slit, take a quick breath in, and sink again to rise a few paces
farther on and repeat the process.
Thus provided both with swimming and breathing apparatus, these
purely air-breathing animals wander over the wide ocean and live the
lives of fish, making such good use of food which cannot be reached
by land animals, or those which must keep near the shore, that we
shall not be surprised to find that the whale family is a very large one.
But it is curious that the fierce animals of prey among them should
be, not the huge whales but the smaller Dolphins, Porpoises, and
Grampuses; and this shows how different water-feeding is to land-
feeding, since, because the water is full of myriads of small and soft
creatures, the sperm whale feeding on jelly-fish, and the large
whalebone whale feeding on soft cuttle-fish and the minutest beings in
the sea, are those which attain the largest size.
Most people have at one time or another seen a shoal of porpoises
either out at sea or travelling up the mouth of some large river, where

“Upon the swelling waves the dolphins show

Their bending backs, then swiftly darting go,
And in a thousand wreaths their bodies throw;”

and though they are small creatures, only about five feet long, they are
very good examples of the whale shape, with their tapering bodies,
broad tails, and the back fin, which is found in some whales and not in
others. Sometimes they swim quietly, only rising to breathe, and then
they work the tail gently from side to side; at others they gambol and
frolic, and jump right out of the water, beating the tail up and down, and
bending like a salmon when he leaps; and whether they come quietly
or wildly, you may generally know they are near by the frightened
mackerel and herrings, which spring out of the water to avoid them.
For the porpoises have a row of sharp teeth in each jaw, more than a
hundred in all, and they bite, kill, and swallow in one gulp, without
waiting to divide their food, so that they make sad havoc among the
fish.
 Fig. 86.

The Porpoise.188

They are here to-day and gone to-morrow. A few kinds wander up
into fresh water, such as the Ganges and the Amazons, but by far the
greater number range all over our northern seas, together with their
near relations the dolphins, and the bottle-nosed whales, and the
strange narwhal, with its two solitary eye teeth, one only of which
grows out as a long tusk. All these roam freely through the vast ocean
home, coming into the still bays to bring up their young ones, which
they nurse and suckle tenderly, afterwards moving off again in shoals
to the open sea. There they will follow the ships, and sport and play,
and probably we shall never know exactly where their wanderings
extend, though it seems that they prefer the northern hemisphere.
Among all the dolphin family the most voracious and bloodthirsty is
189
the Grampus or Orca, which is commonly called the “Killer Whale,”
because it alone feeds on warm-blooded animals, seizing the seals
with its strong, sharp, conical teeth, devouring even its own relations
the porpoises, and attacking and tearing to pieces the larger whales.
No lion or tiger could be more ruthless in its attacks than this large-
toothed whale, which is sometimes as much as twenty-five feet long
and has broad flippers. In vain even the mother walruses try to save
their young ones by carrying them on their backs; the cunning Orca
swims below her, and coming up with a jerk shakes the young one
from its place of safety and swallows it in a moment. Nor do they
merely fight single-handed, for many voyagers have seen them attack
large whales in a pack like wolves, and in 1858 Mr. Scammon saw
three killer whales fall upon a huge Californian Gray Whale and her
young one, though even the baby whale was three times their size.
They bit, they tore, and wounded them both till they sank, and the
conquerors appeared with huge pieces of flesh in their mouths, as they
devoured their prey. How much they can eat is shown by one orca
having been killed which had the remains of thirteen porpoises and
fourteen seals in its stomach!
How strange now to turn from this ravenous hunter to the huge
Sperm Whale, eighty feet long, with a head one-third the size of its
whole body and more than a ton of spermacetic oil in its forehead, and
to think that this monster swims quietly along in the sea, drops its long
thin lower jaw, and with wide-open mouth simply gulps in jelly-fish,
small fish, and other fry, thus without any exertion or fuss slaying its
millions of small and soft creatures quietly, as the orca does the higher
creatures with so much battle and strife!
For the sperm whale (Fig. 87) must need a great deal of food to
feed its huge body. Though it has forty-two teeth in the lower jaw it
never cuts those in the upper one, and seems to depend more on
sweeping its prey into its mouth than on attacking it. And this perhaps
partly explains the use of that curious case of spermaceti which lies in
its huge forehead over the tough fat of its upper jaw. For this oil gives
out a powerful scent, which, when the whale is feeding below in the
deep water, most probably attracts fish and other small animals, as
they are also certainly attracted nearer the surface by the shining white
lining of its mouth. This light mass is also, however, useful in giving the
head a tendency to rise, so that when the whale wishes to swim
quickly it has only to rise to the top, so that the bulk of its head will
stand out of the water, the lower and narrow part cutting the waves. In
this position he can go at the rate of twelve to twenty miles an hour.
 But if the sperm whale is curious, as it carries its oil-laden head
through all seas from pole to pole, chiefly in warmer latitudes, how
much more so are the whalebone whales, which are monarchs of the
colder and arctic seas, where they feed on the swarms of mollusca,
crustaceans, and jelly animals which live there. For these large
whales, though they have teeth in their gums, never cut them, but in
their place they have large sheets of whalebone hanging down from
the upper jaw (see Fig. 84), smooth on the outside, fringed with short
hairs on the inside, and crowded together so thickly, only about a
quarter of an inch apart, that as many as three hundred sheets hang
down on each side of the mouth of the great Greenland whale.

Fig. 87.

The Sperm Whale.

It is easy to see the use of these whalebones when we remember

that this huge whale feeds entirely by filling its enormous mouth with
water, and then closing it and raising its thick tongue at the back so as
to drive the water out at the sides, straining it through the fine fringes,
which fill up all the spaces between the plates and keep back every
little shell-fish and soft animal. But it is less easy to guess where these
whalebone plates come from, till we look back at the manatee, and
remember those horny ridges which it uses for biting, and which are
exaggerations of the rough fleshy ridges at the top of a cow’s mouth.
Then we have a clue, for each blade of whalebone grows from a
horny white gum, being fed by a fleshy substance below much in the
same way as our nails are, so that these blades are, as it were, a
series of hardened ridges, which grow out from the soft palate, till they
become frayed at the edges, and form that dense fringe which is the
whale’s strainer, upon which he depends entirely for his food.
Explain it as we will, however, it is a most wonderful apparatus.
Imagine a huge upper jaw forming an arch more than nine feet high, so
that if the whalebone were cleared away a man could walk about
inside, upon the thick tongue which lies in the lower jaw fastened down
almost to the tip so that it cannot be put out of the mouth. And then
remember that this enormous mouth has to be filled with food sufficient
to nourish a body fifty or more feet long. Who would ever guess that
this food is made up of creatures so small that countless millions must
go to a mouthful? Yet the whole difficulty is solved simply by these
triangular fringed plates or mouth-ridges (see section Fig. 84, p. 318),
covered with horny matter and frayed into minute threads like the
horny barbs of a feather.
Nor are we yet at the end of the wonderful adaptation, for while the
jaw is only from nine to twelve feet high, the long outside edge of the
plates is often eighteen feet long, and for this reason, that if they were
only as long as the jaw is deep, then when the whale went fishing with
his mouth open the animals would escape below the fringe, while as
they now are, he may gape as wide as he will, the long curtain will still
guard the passage of the mouth and entangle the prey in its meshes.
But what, then, is to become of this great length of whalebone when
the animal shuts his mouth? Here comes in the use of the beautiful
elasticity of the plates, for the great Arctic whaler, Captain Gray, has
shown that as the mouth shuts the lower ends of the longer plates
bend back towards the throat and fall into the hollow formed by the
short blades behind them, so that the whole lies compactly fitted in,
ready to spring open again, and fill the gap whenever the jaws are
distended.
With this magnificent fishing-net the whalebone whales go a-
fishing in all the salt waters of the world. They are not all of enormous
size,—many of them are not more than twenty feet long,—nor have
they all such a perfect mouthful of whalebone as the great Polar
Whale; but when the whalebone is shorter, as in the Rorqual, and
other whales with back fins, the stiff walls of the lower lip close in the
sides of the mouth and prevent the escape of the prey; and many of
these whales have a curious arrangement of skin folds under the lower
jaw, which stretch out and enable them to take in enormous mouthfuls
of water, so as to secure more food.
New Zealand, California, Japan, the Cape, the Bay of Biscay, and
in fact almost every shore or sea from pole to pole, has some whale
called by its name; for these gaping fishers are everywhere, and it is
not always easy to say whether the same whale is not called by
different names in various parts of the world. In the shallow bays and
lagoons they may be found with their newly-born young ones very
early in the year; while far out at sea ships meet with them travelling in
shoals, or “schools,” northwards, as the summer sets in and the Arctic
Sea is swarming with life. In fact the Californian gray whales go right
up into the ice, poking their noses up through the holes to breathe, and
then they travel far away south again into the tropics to bring up their
young ones.
And whether large or small, toothed whales or whalebone whales,
active as the dolphin and the huge fin-whales or rorquals, which dash
through the water although some are nearly a hundred feet long, or
lazy and harmless as the Greenland whale is unless attacked, in one
thing all the whale family betray their high place in the animal kingdom.
Nowhere, either on land or in the water, can mothers be found more
tender, more devoted, or more willing to sacrifice their lives for their
children than whale-mothers. Scoresby tells us that the whalers, as
means of catching the grown-up whales, will sometimes strike a young
one with harpoon and line, sure that the mother will come to its rescue.
Then she may be seen coming to the top with it encouraging it to swim
away, and she will even take it under her fin, and, in spite of the
harpoons of the whalers, will never leave it till life is extinct. Nay, she
has been known to carry it off triumphantly, for the lash of her tail is
furiously strong when she is maddened by the danger of her child, so
that a boat’s crew scarcely dare approach her.
And now there remains the question what enemies besides man
these strong-swimming milk-givers can have in their ocean home? We
have seen that the orca or killer whale will turn cannibal and devour
those of its own kind, and the swordfish is said to attack whales with its
formidable spear; but these are not their greatest enemies. With many
of the whales it is tiny creatures like those on which they feed which
hasten their death, for small parasitic crustaceans cover their head and
fins, and feed upon their fat, so that whales which have been infested
with these animals are often found to be “dry,” or to have lost nearly all
their oil. And thus we see the tables turned, and while the whale feeds
upon minute creatures, it is in its turn destroyed by them.
Nevertheless, as a rule, they probably live long lives, till their teeth
are worn, or their whalebone frayed and broken, and their blubber
wasted away; and then, it may be after eighty or one hundred years of
life, they die a natural death. Therefore they probably share with the
elephant the longest term of life of any of the warm-blooded animals;
and though their existence cannot certainly be said to be an exciting
one, yet, when undisturbed by man, it is at least peaceful, sociable,
and full of family love.
It may perhaps seem strange that we should have taken these
ocean-dwellers last in our glimpses of animal life; but in the first place,
how was it possible to show how they are truly related to the land
mammalia until we understood the structure of these last? And in the
second place, we have as our object to see how the backboned family
have won for themselves places in the world, and surely there are
none which have done this more successfully or in a more strange and
unexpected way than the whales, which, while retaining all the
qualities of warm-blooded animals, have won themselves a home in
the ocean by imitating the form and habits of fish, and so adapting
themselves to find food in the great oceans, where their land relations
were powerless to avail themselves of it.
WHEN THE COLD HAS PASSED AWAY
 CHAPTER XII.
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE RISE AND
PROGRESS OF BACKBONED LIFE.

We have now sketched out, though very roughly, the history of the
various branches of the great backboned family, and we have found
that, as happens in all families, they have each had their successes
and their downfalls, their times of triumph, and their more sober days,
when the remaining descendants have been content to linger on in the
byways of life, and take just so much of this world’s good as might fall
to their share.
We have seen also that, as in all families of long standing, many
branches have become extinct altogether; the great enamel-plated
fish, the large armour-covered newts, the flying, swimming, and huge
erect-walking reptiles, the toothed and long-tailed birds, the gigantic
marsupials, the enormous ground-loving sloths, and many others,
have lived out their day and disappeared; their place being filled either
by smaller descendants of other branches of the group, or by new
forms in the great armies of fish, birds, and milk-givers which now have
chiefly possession of the earth.
Still, on the whole, the history has been one of a gradual rise from
lower to higher forms of life; and if we put aside for a moment all
details, and, forgetting the enormous lapse of time required, allow the
shifting scene to pass like a panorama before us, we shall have a
grand view indeed of the progress of the great backboned family.
First, passing by that long series of geological formations in which
no remains of life have been found, or only those of boneless or
invertebrate animals, we find ourselves in a sea abounding in stone-
190
lilies and huge crustaceans, having among them the small forms of
the earliest fish known to us, those having gristly skeletons. Then as
the scene passes on, and forests clothe the land, we behold the
descendants of these small fish becoming large and important,
wearing heavy enamelled plates or sharp defensive spines; some of
them with enormous jaws, two or three feet in length, wandering in the
swamps and muddy water, and using their air-bladder as a lung. But
these did not turn their air-breathing discovery to account; they
remained in the water, and their descendants are fish down to the
present day.
It is in the next scene, when already the age of the huge extinct
fishes is beginning to pass away, and tree ferns and coal forest plants
191
are flourishing luxuriantly, that we find the first land animals, which
have been growing up side by side with the fish, and gradually learning
to undergo a change, marvellous indeed, yet similar to one which goes
on under our eyes each year in every country pond. For now, mingling
with the fish, we behold an altogether new type of creatures which,
beginning life as water-breathers, learn to come out upon the land and
live as air-breathers in the swamps of the coal forests.
A marvellous change this is, as we can judge by watching our
common tadpole, and seeing how during its youth its whole breathing
organs are remade on a totally different principle, its heart is
remodelled from an organ of two chambers into one of three, the whole
course of its blood is altered, some channels being destroyed and
others multiplied and enlarged, a sucking mouth is converted into a
gaping bony jaw, and legs with all their bones and joints are produced
where none were before, while the fish’s tail, its office abandoned, is
gradually absorbed and lost.
The only reason why this completely new creation, taking place in
one and the same animal, does not fill us with wonder is, that it goes
on in the water where generally we do not see it, and because the
most wonderful changes are worked out inside the tadpole, and are
only understood by physiologists. But in truth the real alteration in
bodily structure is much greater than if a seal could be changed into a
monkey.
Now this complete development which the tadpole goes through in
one summer is, after all, but a rapid repetition, as it were, of that slow
and gradual development which must have taken place in past ages,
when water-breathing animals first became adapted to air-breathing.
Any one, therefore, who will take the spawn of a frog from a pond, and
watch it through all its stages, may rehearse for himself that
marvellous chapter in the history of the growth and development of
higher life.
And he will gain much by this study, for all nature teaches us that
this is the mode in which the Great Power works. Not “in the
whirlwind,” or by sudden and violent new creations, but by the “still
small voice” of gentle and gradual change, ordering so the laws of
being that each part shall model and remodel itself as occasion
requires. Could we but see the whole, we should surely bend in
reverence and awe before a scheme so grand, so immutable, so
irresistible in its action, and yet so still, so silent, and so imperceptible,
because everywhere and always at work. Even now to those who
study nature, broken and partial as their knowledge must be, it is
incomprehensible how men can seek and long for marvels of
spasmodic power, when there lies before them the greatest proof of a
mighty wisdom in an all-embracing and never-wavering scheme, the
scope of which is indeed beyond our intelligence, but the partial
working of which is daily shown before our very eyes.
But to return to our shifting scene where the dense forests of the
Coal Period next come before us. There, while numerous fish, small
and great, fill the waters, huge Newts have begun their reign
(Labyrinthodonts), wandering in the marshy swamps or swimming in
the pools, while smaller forms run about among the trees, or, snake-
like in form, wriggle among the ferns and mosses; and one and all of
these lead the double-breathing or amphibian life.
In the next scene the coal forests are passing away, though still the
strange forms of the trees and the gigantic ferns tell us we have not left
192
them quite behind; and now upon the land are true air-breathers, no
longer beginning life in the water, but born alive, as the young ones of
the black salamander are now (see p. 81). The Reptiles have begun
their reign, and they show that, though still cold-blooded animals, they
have entered upon a successful line of life, for they increase in size
and number till the world is filled with them.
Meanwhile other remarkable forms now appear leading off to two
new branches of backboned life. On the one hand, little insect-eating
warm-blooded marsupials scamper through the woods, having started
we scarcely yet know when or where, except that we learn from their
structure that they probably branched off from the amphibians in quite
a different line from the reptiles, and certainly gained a footing upon
the earth in very early times. On the other hand, birds come upon the
193 194
scene having teeth in their mouths, long-jointed tails, and many
other reptilian characters. We have indeed far more clue to the
relationship of the birds than we have of the marsupials, for while we
have these reptile-like birds, we have also the bird-like reptiles such as
the little Compsognathus, which hopped on two feet, had a long neck,
bird-like head and many other bird-like characters, though no wings or
feathers.
The birds, however, even though reptile-like in their beginning,
must soon have branched out on a completely new line. They for the
195
first time among this group of animals, have the perfect four-
chambered heart with its quick circulation and warm blood; while not
only do they use their fore limbs for flying (for this some reptiles did
before them), but they use them in quite a new fashion, putting forth a
clothing of feathers of wondrous beauty and construction, and with true
wings taking possession of the air, where from this time their history is
one of continued success.
And now we have before us all the great groups of the backboned
family—fish, amphibia, reptiles, birds and mammalia; but in what
strange proportions! As the scenery of the Chalk Period with its fan-
palms and pines comes before us, we find that the gristly fish, except
the sharks and a few solitary types, are fast dying out, while the bony
196
fish are but just beginning their career. The large amphibians are all
gone long ago; they have run their race, enjoyed their life and finished
their course, leaving only the small newts and salamanders, and later
on the frogs and toads, to keep up the traditions of the race. The land-
birds are still in their earliest stage; they have probably scarcely lost
their lizard-like tail, and have not yet perfected their horny beak, but
are only feeling their way as conquerors of the air. And as for the milk-
givers, though we have met with them in small early forms, yet now for
a time we lose sight of them again altogether.
 It is the reptiles—the cold-blooded monster reptiles—which seem
at this time to be carrying all before them. We find them everywhere—
in the water, with paddles for swimming; in the air, with membranes for
flying; on the land hopping or running on their hind feet. From small
creatures not bigger than two feet high, to huge monsters thirty feet in
height, feeding on the tops of trees which our giraffes and elephants
could not reach, they fill the land; while flesh-eating reptiles, quite their
match in size and strength, prey upon them as lions and tigers do upon
197
the grass-feeders now. This is no fancy picture, for in our museums,
and especially in Professor Marsh’s wonderful collection in Yale
Museum in America, you may see the skeletons of these large reptiles,
and build them up again in imagination as they stood in those ancient
days when they looked down upon the primitive birds and tiny
marsupials, little dreaming that their own race, then so powerful, would
dwindle away, while these were to take possession in their stead.
And now in our series of changing scenes comes all at once that
strange blank which we hope one day to fill up; and when we look
again the large reptiles are gone, the birds are spreading far and wide,
and we come upon those early and primitive forms of insect-eaters,
gnawers, monkeys, grass-feeders, and large flesh-eaters, whose
descendants, together with those of the earlier marsupials, are
henceforward to spread over the earth. We need scarcely carry our
pictures much farther. We have seen how, in these early times, the
flesh-feeders and grass-feeders were far less perfectly fitted for their
198
lives than they are now; how the horse has only gradually acquired
his elegant form; the stag his branching antlers; and the cat tribe their
scissor-like teeth, powerful jaws, and muscular limbs; while the same
history of gradual improvement applies to nearly all the many forms of
milk-givers.
But there is another kind of change which we must not forget,
which has been going on all through this long history, namely,
alterations in the level and shape of the continents and islands, as
coasts have been worn away in some places and raised up or added
to in others, so that different countries have been separated from or
joined to each other. Thus Australia, now standing alone, with its
curious animal life, must at some very distant time have been joined to
the mainland of Asia, from which it received its low forms of milk-
givers, and since then, having become separated from the great
battlefield of the Eastern Continent, has been keeping for us, as it were
in a natural isolated zoological garden, the strange primitive Platypus
and Echidna, and Marsupials of all kinds and habits.
So too, Africa, no doubt for a long time cut off by a wide sea which
prevented the larger and fiercer animals from entering it, harboured the
large wingless ostriches, the gentle lemurs, the chattering monkeys,
the scaly manis, and a whole host of insect-eaters; while South
America, also standing alone, gave the sloths and armadilloes, the ant-
bears, opossums, monkeys, rheas, and a number of other forms, the
chance of establishing themselves firmly before stronger enemies
came to molest them. These are only a few striking examples which
help us to see how, if we could only trace them out, there are reasons
to be found why each animal or group of animals now lives where we
find it, and has escaped destruction in one part of the world when it
has altogether disappeared in others.

* * * * *
So, wandering hither and thither, the backboned family, and
especially the milk-givers, took possession of plains and mountain
ranges, of forests and valleys, of deserts and fertile regions. But still
another question remains—How has it come to pass that large animals
which once ranged all over Europe and Northern Asia,—mastodons,
tusked tapirs, rhinoceroses, elephants, sabre-toothed tigers, cave-
199
lions, and hippopotamuses in Europe, gigantic sloths and llamas in
North America, and even many huge forms in South America, have
either been entirely destroyed or are represented now only by
scattered groups here and there in southern lands? What put an end to
the “reign of the milk-givers,” and why have they too diminished on the
earth as the large fish, the large newts, and the large lizards did before
them?
To answer this question we must take up our history just before the
200
scene at the head of our last chapter, which the reader may have
observed does not refer, as the others have done, to the animals in the
chapter itself. Nevertheless it has its true place in the series, for it tells
of a time when the great army of milk-givers had its difficulties and
failures as well as all the other groups, only these came upon them not
from other animals but from the influence of snow and ice.
For we know that gradually from the time of tropical Europe, when
all the larger animals flourished in our country, a change was creeping
very slowly and during long ages over the whole northern hemisphere.
The climate grew colder and colder, the tropical plants and animals
were driven back or died away, glaciers grew larger and snow deeper
and more lasting, till large sheets of ice covered Norway and Sweden,
the northern parts of Russia, Germany, England, Holland, and
Belgium, and in America the whole of the country as far south as New
York. Then was what geologists call the “Glacial Period;” and whether
the whole country was buried in ice, or large separate glaciers and
thick coverings of snow filled the land, in either case the animals, large
and small, must have had a bad time of it.
True, there were probably warmer intervals in this intense cold,
when the more southern animals came and went, for we find bones of
the hippopotamus, hyæna, and others buried between glacial beds in
the south of England. But there is no doubt that at this time numbers of
land animals must have perished, for in England alone, out of fifty-
three known species which lived in warmer times, only twelve survived
the great cold, while others were driven southwards never to return,
and the descendants of others came back as new forms, only distantly
related to those which had once covered the land.
Moreover, when the cold passed away and the country began
again to be covered with oak and pine forests where animals might
feed and flourish, we find that a new enemy had made his appearance.
Man—active, thinking, tool-making man—had begun to take
possession of the caves and holes of the rocks, making weapons out
of large flints bound into handles of wood, and lighting fires by rubbing
wood together, so as to protect himself from wild beasts and inclement
weather.
In America and in England alike, as well as in Northern Africa, Asia
Minor, and India, we know that man was living at this time among
animals, many of them of species which have since become extinct,
and with his rude weapons of jagged flint was conquering for himself a
place in the world.
He must have had a hard struggle, for we find these flint
implements now lying among the bones of hyænas, sabre-toothed
tigers, cave-lions, cave-bears, rhinoceroses, elephants, and
hippopotamuses, showing that it was in a land full of wild beasts that
he had to make good his ground.

“By the swamp in the forest

The oak-branches groan,
As the savage primeval,
With russet hair thrown
O’er his huge naked limbs, swings his hatchet of stone.

“And now, hark! as he drives with

A last mighty swing,
The stone blade of the axe through
The oak’s central ring,
From his blanched lips what screams of wild agony spring!

There’s a rush through the fern-fronds,

A yell of affright,
And the Savage and Sabre-tooth
Close in fierce fight,
201
As the red sunset smoulders and blackens to night.”

Many and fierce these conflicts must have been, for the wild
beasts were still strong and numerous, and man had not yet the skill
and weapons which he has since acquired. But rough and savage
though he may have been, he had powers which made him superior to
all around him. For already he knew how to make and use weapons to
defend himself, and how to cover himself at least with skins as
protection from cold and damp. Moreover, he had a brain which could
devise and invent, a memory which enabled him to accumulate
experience, and a strong power of sympathy which made him a highly
social being, combining with others in the struggle for life.
 And so from that early time till now, man, the last and greatest
winner in life’s race, has been taking possession of the earth. With
more and more powerful weapons he has fought against the wild
beasts in their native haunts; and by clearing away the large forests,
cutting up the broad prairies and pastures, and cultivating the land, he
has turned them out of their old feeding grounds, till now we must go to
the centre of Africa, the wild parts of Asia, or the boundless forests of
South America, to visit in their homes the large wild animals of the
great army of milk-givers.

* * * * *
Since, therefore, these forms are growing rarer every century, and
some of them, such as the Dodo, Epyornis, and Moa among birds, and
the northern sea-cow or Rhytina among milk-givers, have already
disappeared since the times of history, we must endeavour, before
others are gone for ever, to study their structure and their habits. For
we are fast learning that it is only by catching at these links in nature’s
chain that we can hope to unravel the history of life upon the earth.
At one time naturalists never even thought that there was anything
to unravel, for they looked upon the animal kingdom as upon a building
put together brick by brick, each in its place from the beginning. To
them, therefore, the fact that a fish’s fin, a bird’s wing, a horse’s leg, a
man’s arm and hand, and the flipper of a whale, were all somewhat
akin, had no other meaning than that they seemed to have been
formed upon the same plan; and when it became certain that different
kinds of animals had appeared from time to time upon the earth, the
naturalists of fifty years ago could have no grander conception than
that new creatures were separately made (they scarcely asked
themselves how) and put into the world as they were wanted.
But a higher and better explanation was soon to be found, for there
was growing up among us the greatest naturalist and thinker of our
day, that patient lover and searcher after truth, Charles Darwin, whose
genius and earnest labours opened our eyes gradually to a conception
so deep, so true, and so grand, that side by side with it the idea of
making an animal from time to time, as a sculptor makes a model of
clay, seems too weak and paltry ever to have been attributed to an
Almighty Power.