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, become white like snow; in tropical countries where there is a lot of green vegetation and trees they became green or some other bright colour. That is, they adapt themselves to their surroundings. They change their colour to protect themselves from their enemies as they cannot easily be seen if they are the same colour as their surroundings. They grow fur in cold countries to keep warm in the cold. So also the tiger is yellow and striped. It is like sunlight coming through the trees in the jungle. It is difficult to see the tiger in the thick jungle.
This very interesting fact that animals try to fit in with their surroundings is a very important thing. Of course, animals do not themselves try to change. But those which change and therefore fit in with their surroundings have a better chance of living. So they increase in numbers and the others do not. This explains so many things. It explains the simple animals slowly developing into higher kinds of animals, and maybe in millions of years developing into man. We cannot see the changes going on around us as they are slow and our lives are short. But nature goes on working and changing and making more perfect. It never stops or takes rest.
Now you remember that the world was getting cooler and was slowly drying up. As it became cooler, the climate changed and many other things changed. As the earth changed, so also slowly the animals changed and newer types of animals appeared. At first, we have only simple sea animals, then complicated sea animals. Later, as dry land increased, there came animals which lived both in water and on land, something like the crocodiles today or the frogs. These were followed by animals which lived entirely on land, and then there came birds which could fly in the air.
I have mentioned the frog. This is an interesting study as in its own life. It shows us in a way how animals gradually changed from water animals to land animals. A frog at first IS a fish, but later it becomes like a land animal and breathes with its lungs as all land animals do.
There were great forests in those early days when life started on land. The land must have been all swampy with thick jungles on it. These forests later on got covered up and with the pressure of a great deal of rock and earth they slowly changed to coal. You know that we get our coal from mines deep down in the earth. The coal mines are really old forests of those far-off days.
Among the first land animals were enormous snakes and lizards and crocodiles. Some of these were a hundred feet long. Imagine a snake or a lizard one hundred feet long! Do you remember seeing the fossils of these brutes in the museum in London?
Later came animals which are more like the animals we see today. These are called mammals because they suckle their young. These also were at first much bigger than they are today. The mammal which most resembles man is the monkey or rather the ape. People think therefore that man is descended from the ape. This means that as each animal gradually adapted himself to his surroundings and became better and better, so also man at first was only a better ape. Of course, he went on improving, or nature went on improving him, and now man thinks no end of himself. He imagines himself so utterly different from the animals. But it is good to remember that we are cousins of the ape and the monkey, and even now many of us, I am afraid, behave like the monkeys do!
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