carried on their development before hatching to a stage so nearly like the adult form that the young could live in air from the first moment of independent existence. Gills had been cut out altogether, and the gill slits only appeared as an embryonic phase.
These new creatures without a tadpole stage were the Reptiles.
Concurrently there had been a development of seed-bearing trees, which could spread their seed, independently of swamp or lakes.
There were now palmlike cycads and many tropical conifers, though as yet there were no flowering plants and no grasses.
There was a great number of ferns.
And there was now also an increased variety of insects.
There were beetles, though bees and butterflies had yet to come.
But all the fundamental forms of a new real land fauna and flora had been laid down during these vast ages of severity.
This new land life needed only the opportunity of favourable conditions to flourish and prevail.