VARIATION IN THE HABITS OF ANIMALS. 619 



every city. The American fireman is to-day equipped with the 

 finest apparatus in the world for extinguishing fires and. saving 

 life, but he is badly handicapped by the town and city govern- 

 ments on every hand, who will not modify loose building laws or 

 strengthen slight fire restrictions.* 



VARIATION IN THE HABITS OF ANIMALS. 



By GERTRUDE GROTTY DAVENPORT. 



IN the introduction to his Animal Life as Affected by the Nat- 

 ural Conditions of Existence, Carl Semper wrote, in 1879 : " It 

 appears to me that of all the properties of the animal organism, 

 Variability is that which may first and most easily be traced by 

 exact investigation to its efficient causes ; and, as it is beyond a 

 doubt the subject around which at the present moment the strife 

 of opinion is most violent, it is that which will be most likely to 

 repay the trouble of closer research." 



Among other sorts of variability discussed by Semper, that 

 which concerns the change of food habits of animals receives con- 

 sideration, and several examples illustrating such changes pol- 

 yphagy are cited. For instance, on page 62 the story of the New 

 Zealand parrot (Nestor mirabilis) is told. This parrot, which 

 formerly fed upon the juices of plants and flowers, has acquired 

 the habit of sipping the blood of newly slaughtered sheep, and 

 thereby has come to develop such a love for the taste of blood 

 that it will now alight upon living sheep and peck at the "most 

 minute wounds." Another case is told of two horses in Chili 

 which had developed the habit of eating young pigeons and 

 chickens. 



A great many other interesting cases of variability in food 

 habits might be collected by a little observation and by compila- 

 tion. Two such cases at least have come under my own observa- 

 tion. On a farm in Coffey County, Kansas, a few years ago, there 



* In compiling the data for this article the writer wishes to acknowledge the services 

 rendered by all the manufacturers of fire apparatus, especially the American Eire Engine 

 Company, the La France Fire Engine Company, S. F. Hayward & Company, and the 

 Gleason & Bailey Manufacturing Company. Also the personal assistance of the chiefs of 

 the Bangor, Boston, Hartford, New York, and Louisville Fire Departments ; Mr. James R. 

 Newhall, the Lynn historian; Mr. Arthur W. Brayley, author of the History of the Boston 

 Fire Department; Mr. Albert C. Winsor, Secretary of the Providence Veteran Fire Associa- 

 tion ; Mr. Amos Perry, Secretary of the Rhode Island Historical Society ; Mr. A. D. Nicker- 

 aon, Pawtucket; Mr. William Cowles, of the Cowles Engineering Company; Mr. Talcott 

 Williams, of the Philadelphia Press ; Mr. Abner Greenleaf, of Baltimore ; and Mr. E. Steck, 

 Superintendent of the Fire Extinguisher Manufacturing Company, of Chicago. 



