INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. x|i 



incredibly long without any at all. Captain 

 Bligh of the Bounty, failed near four thoufand 

 miles in an open boat, reduced to the utmoft ex- 

 tremity for want of provifions : fometimes a bird, 

 not many ounces in weight, was the only food for 

 feventeen people in a day. Fourteen men and 

 women of the Juno, wrecl^cd an the coaft of Ar- 

 racan, lived twenty-three days without a morfel 

 of food. On the fifth day after the fhipwreck, 

 two people fiffl died of want. 



Animals, Redi obLrves, do not perilh from 

 hunger fo foon as is generally bei .. red. The pe- 

 riod of their death is very various. Houfe and 

 field rats never lived with him three days ; ca- 

 pons lived feven, eight, cr nine ; a civet cat lived 

 ten ; wild pigeons, twelve and thirteen days ; an 

 antelope, twenty, and a very large wild cat, the 

 fame time. A royal eagle furvived twenty-eight 

 days without food. Buffon mentions one that 

 lived five complete weeks. A badger lived a 

 month, and feveral dogs thirty-fix days. — When 

 we confider total abftinence from food for fuch 

 a length of time as thirty-fix days, it is truly 

 wonderful that the animal could exift. But ac- 

 counts flill more furprifing are given by natura- 

 lifts of undoubted credit. A crocodile will live 

 two months without food. Leeuwenhoeck had 

 a fcorpion that lived three, A bear is faid tp 



have 



