Carnivore

“ But it is a reasonable view that Carnivores and Primates sprang from a common Insectivore stock, the one order diverging towards flesh-eating and hunting on the ground, the other order diverging towards fruit-eating and arboreal habits. ”

“ The fruitful, steaming, rich-laden earth now offered tens of millions of square miles of pasture to vegetal feeders; the waters, on the other hand, teemed with gigantic sharks, huge Cephalopods, large scorpion-like and lobster-like animals, and shoals of armour-plated, hard-toothed fishes. Successive swarms of vegetarians—Worms, Molluscs, etc.—followed the plant on to the land; and swarms of carnivores followed the vegetarians, and assumed strange, new forms in adaptation to land-life. ”

“ But a carnivor or a fish-eater or one depending on special fruits and roots not offered to him by nature in mass has to search for, and sometimes to hunt, or at any rate to compete with others, for the scattered and elusive "bits" of food. So it is that we find that the fruit-eating apes are not very big, and that terrestrial carnivors are small, though powerful and swift, as compared with cattle, deer, and vegetarian beasts. Ten carnivors weighing each ten stone will with their ten mouths "pick up" more prey than one carnivor weighing a hundred stone and having only one mouth. ”

“ With the lion and the wolf he will eat of fresh slain animals; with the dogs and the vulture he will feed on putrid flesh; [5] [8] with the ox and the guinea-pig he will devour raw vegetables, under the name of salads; with the squirrel and the mouse he will feast on nuts and grain; with birds of prey he feeds on fowl of almost every species; with fishes he feeds on fish; and with insects and reptiles he sometimes lives on insects and reptiles. Nor is he satisfied even with this abundant variety, but must go to the mineral kingdom for salt, as a condiment before he can furnish out his meal. ”

“ Those of the Linnæan order, glires, [4] live on grain and fruits; each order of birds, keeps, in the same manner, to one sort of food, animal or vegetable. Fishes, reptiles, and insects, also have each their peculiar and exclusive bill of fare, beyond which even hunger will scarcely force them to wander. But however various each class, and order, and species of animated nature may be in the choice of food, man—all-devouring man, will embrace the whole range of the creation, “scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.” ”

“ The flesh and the blood of other animals of all kinds, warm or cold, the leaves, twigs, fruits, juices of plants, putrid carcases, hair, feathers, skin, bran, sawdust, the vegetable mould or "humus" of the earth's surface, the sand of the sea, with its minute particles of organic detritus, all serve as food to different kinds of animals. Some are very little fettered in their tastes, and are called "omnivorous," others are bound in the strictest way to a diet consisting of the leaves of some one species of plant or the juices of one species of animal. ”

“ Again, as to food, the land birds will be more closely pressed than those which can at all times fish in the sea. There is great scarcity of land food in the winter, while in summer whole flocks of newly-born fledgelings are clamouring for their daily bread. So we shall find that every kind of eatable thing is turned to account, and we have among land birds seed-eaters, vegetable-feeders, and fruit-eaters; insect-devourers, and feeders on slugs and worms and snails; and flesh-eaters which feed on other birds, or on mice, bats, and larger animals ”

“ No animal eats such variety of food as man; he claims, more justly than any other creature, the title of omnivorous! for since he is distinguished beyond all animals, but the capability of living in the most distant parts of the globe, under every variety of climate which the earth affords, his food could not be confined exclusively to either the vegetable or animal kingdom, because he inhabits regions that afford aliments widely different from each other. Cattle content themselves with green vegetables; [7] rapacious animals live on the flesh of other creatures. ”

“ They eat salt and fresh fish, dried fish, seaweed, slugs, the various vegetables which grow in the wilderness of tall weeds which surrounds their villages, wild roots and berries, fresh and dried venison and bear; their carnival consisting of fresh bear's flesh and sake, seaweed, mushrooms, and anything they can get, in fact, which is not poisonous, mixing everything up together. They use a wooden spoon for stirring, and eat with chopsticks. They have only two regular meals a day, but eat very heartily. ”

“ Being of a timid disposition, they proceed only at night in quest of food, which consists of fallen fruit, roots, leaves, insects, &c. It is, however, not founded on truth, that they extract the milk from the udders of cows; as the peculiar smallness of their mouth renders the act of sucking impracticable.—They may be advantageously kept in gardens, where they will be of considerable service, by devouring many noxious insects, especially moles, mice, and snails, which last they eat with great avidity.—The flesh of these creatures is eatable. ”

“ Man and carnivorous animals feed upon individuals which are either wholly formed, or nearly so; flesh, eggs, grain, and seeds of every species, form their usual nourishment, [118] by which alone the exuberance of Nature might be restrained. Let us consider any of the inferior species which serve as food to others; herrings, for example, present themselves in millions to our fishermen, and after having fed all the monsters of the northern seas, they contribute to the subsistence of all the nations in Europe for a certain part of the year. ”

“ Every animal by natural selection and the nature of its environment is structurally adapted for the special kind of food which serves for its nourishment, such adaptation being determined by the nature of its teeth, the length and complexity of the digestive canal, the character of the climate of its habitat, and the particular constitution of the animal. Man, by the structure of his teeth and digestive organs, the latter standing midway in length and complexity between the plant-eating animals and the carnivora, is specially adapted for a mixed diet. ”

“ This classification, however, is sufficiently exact for the practical purposes of a food manual and, therefore, under the head of meat is included the edible flesh of mammals living on the land.
Animals Whose Flesh is Edible. —Probably the only complete classification of this kind would be to include every animal living on the face of the earth since, perhaps, the flesh of every animal living has been more or less eaten by man. In a civilized community, however, except in times of disaster and dire necessity, certain classes of animals only furnish the principal meat food. ”

“ This might entirely support a cow and calf during the summer; all the work done by these animals, as well as all the work which can be done on the beef which they put on, is due to the activity of the grasses on that acre. Moreover it is not only these large animals that are supported, but every mouse, every bird, every insect, and every worm which lives on that piece of ground, derives all its energy from the activity of the plants thereon.
All work which we do with our brains or muscles involves the consumption of food which has been formed by plants under the warm rays of the sun. ”

“ This hypothesis seems to lessen the difficulty, but it overlooks the fact that the grasses, leaves, seeds, and fruits, which are the food of the herbivorous races, swarm with insect life. The supposition that the carnivorous animals could at any time have fed upon vegetables, cannot be entertained for a moment, except it were by a person quite ignorant of the anatomical structure of those animals. Their bones and muscles, their teeth, claws, stomachs, and intestines, demonstrate that they were created to be nourished solely by animal food. ”

“ Our forefathers, down to the seventeenth century, or thereabouts, all imagined, in perfectly good faith, that certain vegetable and animal forms gave birth, in the process of their decomposition, to insect life. Thus, if you put a piece of meat in the sun, and allowed it to putrefy, they conceived that the grubs which soon began to appear were the result of the action of a power of spontaneous generation which the meat contained. And they could give you receipts for making various animal and vegetable preparations which would produce particular kinds of animals. ”

“ The only animal with toes upon the feet that feeds upon grass is the hare, and he will eat corn as well; while the solid-hoofed animals, and the swine among the cloven-footed ones, will eat all kinds of food, as well as roots. To roll over and over is a peculiarity of the animals with a solid hoof. All those which have serrated teeth are carnivorous. Bears live also upon corn, leaves, grapes, fruit, bees, crabs and ants; wolves will eat earth even when they are famishing. Cattle grow fat by drinking ”

“ Not only does man eat the cereals and pulses, which are the richest in nutriment of almost all seeds, but many earlier and lower animals, such as harvest-mice, rats, chipmunks, deer, antelopes, horses, cow-kind, and even prairie-dogs commit great depredations upon them, both in the wild and cultivated states. Still more particularly have large numbers of animals, such as the squirrels, dormice, monkeys, parrots, nut-hatches, and even many grubs, taken to feeding off the fruits and seeds of forest-trees or woodland bushes. ”

“ When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board; while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lively genera. ”

“ In a state of nature the food consists chiefly of herbage, including seeds and fruits; in captivity the diet is of every description, and even in a wild condition small mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects are eaten, with a quantity of grit to aid digestion. In confinement the birds become very tame, and will then swallow bones, nails, and the like–in fact almost anything they can pick up. They can exist for a long time without water, but drink regularly when opportunity offers ”

“ On land, however, there is not the same necessity for animals being carnivorous; both because there is in general a sufficiency of vegetable food, and also because land animals do not multiply in any such degree as fishes do. ”

“ They are, sooner or later, dependent for food on plant-products. It is true that the carnivora eat animal food, but the animals they eat are directly or indirectly consumers of vegetable products. Plants are nature's primary producers of organic material. Animals utilize these products and carry them to higher developments. ”

“ IN my introductory paper I said, "The fact that we use the digestive and nutrient apparatus of sheep, oxen, etc., for the preparation of our food is merely a transitory barbarism, to be ultimately superseded when my present subject is sufficiently understood and applied to enable us to prepare the constituents of the vegetable kingdom to be as easily assimilated as the prepared grass which we call beef and mutton." ”

“ The food consists of grain, pulse, acorns, shoots, flowers, roots, tubers, bulbs, and the like, with the occasional addition of small mammals and birds, reptiles, amphibians, worms, insects, and even fish; the members of this Family, however, dislike wading, and only swim under compulsion. Feeding chiefly in the morning and evening, when they post sentinels, as Rooks do, they often stand or doze upon one leg, with the head drawn back upon the shoulders. ”

“ In general the rodents feed on roots, vegetables, seeds, nuts, bark, leaves, or fruit; but some of them, as the rats, are fond of meat, and indeed devour anything in the shape of food, and are as ready to eat carrion as fresh diet. ”

“ Whatever his original structure, it is argued, man has extended his resources in the matter of food, and has long been "omnivorous," while his middle position between the carnivora and herbivora indicates that he is naturally suited for a "mixed diet." Omnivorous, it will be noted, is the blessed word that is to bring comfort to flesh-eaters, and the inconvenient apes, whom the naturalists class as frugivorous, have somehow to be dragged in under the category of "omnivorous." ”

“ The use of large quantities of animal food, however free from disease germs, has a tendency to develop the animal propensities to a greater or less degree, especially in the young, whose characters are unformed. Among animals we find the carnivorous the most vicious and destructive, while those which subsist upon vegetable foods are by nature gentle and tractable. ”

“ For food, they will eat any table scraps of meat, and vegetables, and bread, chopped fine, and most kinds of grain, broken up, or crushed, for the smaller birds.
But the thing they all like best of everything is raw suet, as it comes from the butcher. A large piece may be wired or nailed in place, so that it may be picked at and not displaced, or it may be chopped fine and scattered on the shelf, like other food. All birds are fond of this. ”

“ The ourang-outang, on being domesticated, readily learns to eat animal food. But if this proves that animal to be omnivorous, then the Horse, Cow, Sheep, and others are all omnivorous, for everyone of them is easily trained to eat animal food. Horses have frequently been trained to eat animal food, [267] and Sheep have been so accustomed to it as to refuse grass. ”