Letter by Indira Gandhi - The Animals Appear
We have seen that the first signs of life on our earth probably were simple little sea animals and water plants. They could only live in the water and if they came out and dried up, they must have died as the jellyfish dies today if it gets stranded on the beach and dries up. But in those days there must have been plenty of water and marshy land, much more so than we have today. Now those jellyfishes and other sea animals which had slightly tougher skins could stay a little longer on dry land than the others as they did not dry up so soon. So gradually the soft jellyfishes and everything else like them became fewer and fewer as they could not face dry land easily, and those with harder coverings became more and more. This is a very interesting thing to notice. It means that animals slowly fit themselves or adapt themselves to their surroundings. You have seen in the South Kensington Museum in London how birds and animals in winter, and in cold countries where there is a lot of ice, b...