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Margoli Crantin Sectory 16
Page 03
Affection for children is, however, not limited to the day of their birth or the period of their infancy. In judging of the relative possession by different races of affection for children, we must ask how the children are treated during all their succeeding years. It must be confessed that the advantage is then entirely on the side of the Occidental. Not only does this appear in the demonstrations of affection which are continued throughout childhood, often even throughout life, but more especially in the active parental solicitude for the children's welfare, striving to fit them for life's duties and watching carefully over their mental and moral education. In these respects the average Occidental is far in advance of the average Oriental.
Palms and species like the big tree of California were growing side by side with species akin to our own common trees. But in the animal world there were many strange forms. This was the age of reptiles. They domineered on the land, in the air, and in the sea. On the land there stalked huge reptiles fifty and sixty feet long, and, when standing erect, at least thirty feet high.<15> Some of these huge creatures were carnivorous, living on other animals. Others fed on the foliage of trees. In the air, huge reptilian bats, veritable flying dragons with a spread of wings from ten to twenty feet, disported themselves.<16> In the sea there swam great reptilian whales, seals, and walruses.<17> There was a marvelous abundance of reptilian life. At the present day, there are not more than six species of reptiles in the whole world having a length of over fifteen feet, and not more than eighteen species exceeding ten feet in length. But from one limited locality, representing but one era of this age in England, there have been discovered four or five species of carnivorous reptiles twenty to fifty feet long, ten or twelve species of crocodiles, lizards, and swimming reptiles from ten to sixty feet long--besides multitudes of great flying reptiles and turtles. Doubtless similar scenes of animal life were everywhere represented.
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