Animal matter

“ Those who partake of animal food open the door of their animal nature, for the ingress of animal influences, and become negative, more or less, to the surrounding magnetisms emanating from the animal faculties, whether of beast or man. ”

“ But both of these animals agree in possessing in common the capability of performing those processes such as taking food, breathing, reproducing, etc., to which attention has been called as being indispensable to all animal life. ”

“ Zoologists seem sometimes to forget these primitive forms of animal life, and yet how little we know of their life-histories! "How the function of nutrition is accomplished, and the nature and condition of the organic material used as food by these minute animals is not yet determined." ”

“ The study whose aim is to make us acquainted with the kind of food adapted to each animal constitutes an interesting branch of Natural History. The bill of fare of every animal is written beforehand in indelible characters on each specific type ”

“ Seeking, then, for the features likely to distinguish the most highly developed animal, we may safely say that they will appear in that animal exposed to the most complex conditions, adapted to the greatest variety of food, possessed of the most fully specialized organs, capable of using its innate forces to the best advantage, and commencing its individual existence with the best start in life. ”

“ Accordingly, zoologists have so arranged the animal kingdom that warm-blooded animals, including man, the birds, and the quadrupeds, are classified together; while the cold-blooded animals, such as the fish, tortoise, frog, and all that have no vertebral column, are classed by themselves. ”

“ You, the animal, do but exist through the absorption of these vegetable substances, and why should you not obey the analogical law of absorption and aggregation? You killed a deer to-day;—the flesh you will appropriate to supply the wants of your own material organization; but the life, the spirit which made that flesh a deer, in obedience to which that shell of external appearance is moulded,—you missed that. ”

“ If in the examination of man's nature we will confine our view exclusively to the lower world of animals, I should say that the possible contagion and communication of various diseases, and organic properties and powers of animals, would prove in man rather a greater sympathy and affinity of organic life and animal blood with the cow, the sheep, the camel, the horse and the elephant, than with the ape. ”

“ Animals then have been categorized into terrestrial and aquatic in three ways, according to their assumption of air or of water, the temperament of their bodies, or the character of their food; and the mode of life of an animal corresponds to the category in which it is found. ”

“ Here am I, a little animal called a man—a bit of vitalized matter, one hundred and sixty-five pounds of meat and blood, nerve, sinew, bones, and brain,—all of it soft and tender, susceptible to hurt, fallible, and frail. I strike a light back-handed blow on the nose of an obstreperous horse, and a bone in my hand is broken. I put my head under the water for five minutes, and I am drowned. I fall twenty feet through the air, and I am smashed. I am a creature of temperature. A few degrees one way, and my fingers and ears and toes blacken and drop off. ”

“ But all animals have and hold a principle in their interior. Wherefore the heart is seen as the first distinct part in animals that have blood; for it is the origin of all the parts, whether similar or dissimilar; and the creature that begins to feel the necessity of nourishment, must already be possessed by the principle of an animal and a full-grown fœtus. ”

“ One of the most interesting occupations which the wide field of Zoology offers to the naturalist, is the investigation of those remarkable adaptations of organs to functions, and of these again to the necessities and well-being of the entire animal. ”

“ We have exceedingly few of those details of manners, those narratives of instinctive actions, those accounts of curious contrivances and stratagems by which the great purposes of animal life are fulfilled, those delightful anecdotes of individual biography,—that throw such a charm over the history of other Classes of Vertebrate animals. ”

“ The animal, in addition to these vegetative functions, has another set of powers, by the use of which he becomes conscious of a world external to himself, and brings {149}himself into active relations with it. By means of the vegetative processes, his life and species are maintained; while, by means of certain animal functions, he feels, acts, and thinks. ”

“ But placing ourselves near to these creatures, and entering as it were into sympathy with them, we can understand something of their powers and feelings. In the first place it is plain that they can vigorously, if roughly, exercise those mechanical, chemical, and vegetative powers of « 208 » life which are characteristic of the animal. They can seize, swallow, digest, and assimilate food ”

“ These primary relations between living beings and their alimentary regimen call forth the activity of every species.
We find, on closer examination, more than one analogy between the animal world and human society ”

“ There are only a few points in the classification of organisms upon which naturalists have always agreed. One of these few undisputed points is the privileged position of the class of Mammals at the head of the animal kingdom. ”

“ To give an imaginary example, from changes in progress on an island, let the organization{234} of a canine animal become slightly plastic, which animal preyed chiefly on rabbits, but sometimes on hares ”

“ To put this question in an arbitrary sense would

be like asking if a mammal is the product of its lungs, or its heart, or its stomach, or of vegetable constituents, or of the atmosphere; whereas each of these conditions, internal and external, is necessary to the life of the animal. ”

“ The discovery of the true nature of the food of this species is particularly desirable, and may enable us to have the animal brought alive to this country, a thing which we believe has not been attempted ”

“ The varied ways in which the colouring and form of animals serve for their protection, their strange disguises as vegetable or mineral substances, their wonderful mimicry of other beings, offer an almost unworked and inexhaustible field of discovery for the zoologist, and will assuredly throw much light on the laws and conditions which have resulted in the wonderful variety of colour, shade, and marking which constitutes one of the most pleasing characteristics of the animal world, but the immediate causes of which it has hitherto been most difficult to explain. ”

“ These changes of colour-pattern have not proceeded at a uniform rate in the various mammalian groups, or even within the same group, for an all-important factor is the mode of life of the particular animal. ”

“ The one-celled animal responds to the presence of food, to heat, to oxygen, to other conditions in its surroundings. An earthworm is repelled by light, is attracted by food. All animals, including man, are put in touch with their surroundings by what we call the organs of sensation. The senses of man, besides those we commonly know as those of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, are those of temperature, pressure, and pain. It is obvious that such organs, if they are to be of use to an animal, must be at the outside of the body. ”

“ Each animal is provided with an organ, which it is difficult to designate by any name, since it performs the office of so many members, and is the only indicator of the existence of vital powers in the creature. ”

“ Such being the case, no other inductive inquiry respecting animals can be successfully carried on, except in subordination to the great inquiry into the universal laws of animal life; and the classification of animals best suited to that one purpose, is the most suitable to all the other purposes of zoological science. ”

“ We have now arrived at the highest rank in the scale of animal life—the four-footed, hair-clad, milk-nursed denizens of our woods and fields—the subclass Mammalia, mammals.
These are the "animals" of popular speech, but accuracy requires a more distinctive expression, for every living thing not a plant is an "animal." ”

“ In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle84 regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life. ”

“ But let us examine its effects when applied to living organized bodies. Bring a snake or other torpid animal into a moderately warm room, and observe what will be the consequence. After a short time the animal begins to move, to open its eyes and mouth; and when it has been subject to the action of heat for a longer time, it crawls about in search of food, and performs all the functions of life. ”

“ To reinforce, from a somewhat different point of view, that which has again and again been urged in the preceding sections of this inquiry, that much of animal behaviour is an organic legacy. A going mechanism of great delicacy, with ready-made co-ordinations, the products of biological evolution, affords to consciousness a vast body of its primary data. ”

“ The fact that in all animals, down almost to the very beginnings of life, sense organs exist, suggests that sensation may be almost, if not quite, coextensive with animal life. All mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes have the same special sense organs as man, and the organs of sight, sound, taste, and smell occupy in all vertebrates the same relative positions in the head. Birds see better than any other animals, and carnivora smell better. ”

“ I have kept various kinds of animals for several years, in order to observe them and try experiments at my convenience. I have suddenly inserted an unfamiliar object in the various cages in which I have kept birds, rabbits, moles, and other animals. At first sight the animal is always surprised, timid, curious, or suspicious, and often retreats from it. By degrees his confidence returns, and after keeping out of the way for some time, he becomes accustomed to it, and resumes his usual habits. ”

“ In considering whether a given animal was wild or domesticated, we must be guided by the following considerations: the number of individuals represented; the relative proportions of young and old; the absence or presence of very old individuals, at least of species that served for food; the traces of long, though indirect, selection, in diminishing the size of any natural weapons which might be injurious to man; the direct action of man during the life of the animal; and finally the texture and condition of the bones. ”

“ Then they turn to other animals, and taking the first handy domestic animal—say a dog—they profess to be able to demonstrate that the analysis of the dog leads them, in gross, to precisely the same results as the analysis of the man ”

“ A large part of the whole animal kingdom is so constructed that sustentation requires animal food. The blood, the tissues, the whole substance of some animal structures require to be renewed by similar substances; and although life may sometimes be continued by the assimilation of vegetable substances alone, it is not [Pg 151] the life for which the animal was formed, because it is not always the life which makes the full end of its being, and realizes its best capacity for enjoyment and for the continuation of its species. ”

“ With a single and not quite explained exception, man is the only animal that resorts to stimulation: a few ruminant mammals—cows, sheep, and deer—pay an occasional visit to the next salt-lick. The carnivora digest their meat without salt ”

“ In general terms, the interpretation is that animals act as they do in virtue of an inherited organic mechanism which responds in a uniform manner to certain stimuli. That this is true of many animal and even human actions, especially in early youth, seems highly probable. ”

“ It is part of the essential nature of an animal to be receptive and responsive. The forces of nature rain their influence upon it; and it reacts to their influence in certain special ways. Other organisms surround it, compete with it, contend with it, strive to prey upon it, and occasionally lend it their aid. It has to adjust itself to this complex environment. ”

“ Underlying all our conceptions of Animal Mimicry and Protective Resemblance is the predicate that other animals see the various objects of nature in similar size, shape, and colour as we do ourselves; in other words, that, though the sensory organs of sight may vary, the practical result is still identical. ”

“ The facts about the bodily make-up or structure of animals constitute that part of zoölogy called animal anatomy or morphology; the facts about the things animals do, or the functions of animals, compose animal physiology; the facts about the development of animals from young to adult condition are the facts of animal development; the knowledge of the different kinds of animals and their relationships to each other is called systematic zoölogy or animal classification ”

“ Both of these factors run through the behavior of all animals, but they are mingled in various proportions in different forms. In the lives of most, if not all animals both are essential elements in the adjustment of the organism to its conditions of existence.” And in regard to those responses which do not change in form with experience, he says (p. 106) : “The element of spontaneous undirected activity is one of vast if not essential importance in the life of nearly all animals. ”

“ Finally as it is only at that extremity of the animal kingdom where occur the most simply organized animals that we meet those which may be regarded as the true germs of animality, and it is the same at the same end of the vegetable series; is it not at this end of the scale, both animal and vegetable, that nature has commenced and recommenced without ceasing the first germ of her living production? ”

“ We could fill pages with the account of the differences existing between animals created for such different purposes and fitted to inhabit different climates, their mode of feeding and catching prey. The manner of bringing forth and rearing the young, and the temperament and temper of the animal creation would fill a volume, but we cannot now stay to examine these various characteristics. ”