FOOD AND FEEDING. 475 



in the plants which they might otherwise be tempted incautiously to 

 swallow. 



In tropical woods, where our "hairy quadrumanous ancestor'' 

 (Darwinian for the primeval monkey, from whom we are presumably 

 descended) used playfully to disport himself, as yet unconscious of his 

 glorious destiny as the remote progenitor of Shakespeare, Milton, and 

 the late Mr. Peace — in tropical woods, such acrid or pungent fruits 

 and plants are particularly common, and correspondingly annoying. 

 The fact is, our primitive forefather and all the other monkeys are, or 

 were, confirmed fruit-eaters. But to guard against their depredations 

 a vast number of tropical fruits and nuts have acquired disagreeable 

 or fiery rinds and shells, which suffice to deter the bold aggressor. It 

 may not be nice to get your tongue burned with a root or fruit, but 

 it is at least a great deal better than getting poisoned ; and, roughly 

 speaking, pungency in external nature exactly answers to the rough, 

 gaudy labels which some chemists paste on bottles containing poisons. 

 It means to say, " This fruit or leaf, if you eat it in any quantities, will 

 kill you." That is the true explanation of capsicums, pimento, colo- 

 cynth, croton-oil, the upas-tree, and the vast majority of bitter, acrid, 

 or fiery fruits and leaves. If we had to pick up our own livelihood, 

 as our naked ancestors had to do. from roots, seeds, and berries, we 

 should far more readily appreciate this simple truth. We should know 

 that a great many more plants than we now suspect are bitter or pun- 

 gent, and therefore poisonous. Even in England we are familiar 

 enough with such defenses as those possessed by the outer rind of the 

 walnut ; but the troj^ical cashew-nut has a rind so intensely acrid that 

 it blisters the lips and fingers instantaneously, in the same way as 

 cantharides would do. I believe that, on the whole, taking Nature 

 throughout, more fruits and nuts are poisonous, or intensely bitter, or 

 very fiery, than are sweet, luscious, and edible. 



" But," says that fidgety person, the hypothetical objector (whom 

 one always sets up for the express purpose of promptly knocking him 

 down again), " if it be the business of the fore part of the tongue to 

 warn us against pungent and acrid substances, how comes it that we 

 purposely use such things as mustard, pepper, curry-powder, and vine- 

 gar ? " Well, in themselves all these things are, strictly speaking, bad 

 for us ; but in small quantities they act as agreeable stimulants ; and we 

 take care in preparing most of them to get rid of the most objectionable 

 properties. Moreover, we use them, not as foods, but merely as condi- 

 ments. One drop of oil of capsicums is enough to kill a man, if taken 

 undiluted ; but in actual practice we buy it in such a very diluted form 

 that comparatively little harm arises from using it. Still, very young 

 children dislike all these violent stimulants, even in small quantities .• 

 they won't touch mustard, pepper, or vinegar, and they recoil at once 

 from wine or spirits. It is only by slow degrees that we learn these 

 unnatural tastes, as our nerves get blunted and our palates jaded ; and 



