These creatures are the lowliest of the class upon the earth. The great majority of all mammals have elaborated a far finer plan, in which the young are retained within the body of the parent until they are quite able to stand the air. The length of this time varies in different mammals from a few weeks to more than a year. The egg must be fertilized before it leaves the body of the parent. If it should fail in this it simply passes out and is wasted. If the fertilizing cell reaches the egg before it has progressed far down the tube it begins its development. The embryo forms for itself the sort of head and tail and gill slits which would have served its fish or its tadpole ancestor. Its limbs develop as little buds indistinguishable from similar buds that would have formed fins for the fish or wings for the bird. Around the embryo there forms a sac, the amnion filled with a fluid which serves to protect the young mammals exactly as the growing chick was protected. Under the forming creature there hangs a small but empty yolksac. This is an actual remnant, a reminder of the past, when the eggs of the mammals were also packed with yolk and the growing embryo secured its nourishment exactly as does the maturing chick. But a new method has been provided for the mammal, and consequently the yolksac, though it has not entirely disappeared, has no nutritive content for the growth of the embryo. The allantois of the chick now gains a new development and an altered function. In the case of the chick it floats against the shell of the egg and absorbs oxygen through the shell. Inside the body of the mammal this is impossible, because the air is too far away. No shell is formed about the egg because it is not to be laid. The tube of the parent's body in which the egg lies becomes thickened at the point of contact with the egg. It grows spongy and full of blood vessels. Meanwhile the allantois is also growing spongy. These two tissues are so closely pressed against each other that the blood vessels of the transformed allantois mesh in with those of the thickened parent wall. Thus the blood vessels of the mother are brought into close contact with those of her offspring. Her blood seeps over into the transformed allantois which is now called a placenta. From this it is handed over to the offspring, which thus receives from the mother her blood, and returns its own used blood for enrichment and purification. So the allantois of the reptile has become the placenta of the mammal. In the first instance it served only as an organ of respiration. Now it has come to supply the embryo with rich blood containing both food and oxygen derived from the mother. After the offspring is born this thickened pad breaks loose, and subsequently is also extruded from the body, forming what is known as the afterbirth.