Restoration of the Silkworm, 165 
regarded with impunity, and then wonders, because he has 
steadily pursued certain stereotyped rules, at the failure of his 
speculation, 
Lest, then, this blind laudation of certain species should lead to 
mischievous results and disappointment among those who are 
desirous of entering into the speculation, I shall here beg leave to 
call the attention of the sericulturist to the well-known fact, that 
** what is one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” and remind him 
that the diet which is admirably adapted to keep up animal heat 
and to nourish an individual in the vicinity of the North Pole, 
will be found both unsuitable and highly injurious to health in 
lower and warmer latitudes. We have but to cast a glance 
around us in order to perceive that each nation, according to its 
climate, differs somewhat from another in the matter of food; 
those of the warmer parts of the world being more frugal and less 
gross in their diet than those of the colder regions, Is it not 
proverbial, that where a Frenchman, content with thin wines and 
a few field herbs wherewith to make a salad, would thrive, an 
Englishman, addicted, as he is, to strong ale, with an unlimited 
allowance of beef and bacon, would starve outright?) The raw 
seal blubber, so palatable to the Esquimaux, would be wholly 
unsuited to the more temperate countries of Europe, and, as a 
rule, we find that the diet is the simplest in the hottest regions, 
and becomes gradually more gross as we approach the north, 
where the cold requires the use of more solid and stimulating 
food to promote and keep up the animal heat of the body. 
Something of the same kind is assuredly perceptible also 
among the feral tribes; the bears, for instance, being far more 
carnivorous in high latitudes than near the tropics, where fruits, 
vegetables and insects constitute the animal’s food; but confining 
my remarks for the present to the larvee of the Bombycide or 
silkspinners, we find that nature has ordained that the species in 
different latitudes shall feed upon different trees. 
It may be said that this arises from the fact that the same trees 
are not found in these different localities, and consequently that 
the insects are compelled to seek another food, or to starve; this, 
however, does not appear to disclose the true philosophy of the 
question, and it certainly does not prove that such food in 
southern regions is equally stimulating with that of northern 
climes, but rather that instinct teaches the insect to accommodate 
itself to the provisions provided for it, precisely as a traveller to 
the northern regions makes use of pemmican, which he discards 
N2 
