Custom 



are nothing of the kind. For the most part they 

 are mere customs, perhaps grown originally out 

 of some necessity, but now perpetuated from simple 

 habit and inherent human laziness. This can 

 perhaps best be illustrated by going below the 

 human to the kingdom of the animals. If cus- 

 toms are strong among men they are far stronger 

 among animals. The sheep lives on grass, the 

 cat lives on mice and other animal food. And 

 it is generally assumed that the respective diets 

 are the most " natural " in each case, and those 

 on which the animals in question will readiest 

 thrive, and indeed that thev could not well live 

 on any other. But nothing of the kind. For 

 cats can be bred up to live on oatmeal and milk 

 with next to no meat ; and a sheep has been 

 known to get on very comfortably on a diet of port 

 wine and mutton chops ! Dogs, whose " natural " 

 food in the wild state is of the animal kind, are 

 undoubtedly much healthier (at any rate in the 

 domestic state) when kept on farinaceous sub- 

 stances with little or no meat, and indeed they take 

 so kindly to a vegetable diet that they sometimes 

 become perfect nuisances in a garden — eating 

 strawberries, gooseberries, peas, etc., freely off 

 the beds when they have once learned the habit. 

 Any one, in fact, who has kept many pets knows 

 what an astonishing variety of food they may be 

 made to adopt, though each animal in the wild 

 state has the most intensely narrow prejudices 

 on the subject, and will perish rather than over- 

 step the customs of its < tribe. Thus pheasants 



209 o 



