Change of Diet 



excruciating condiments, no special acridi- 

 ties, no alkaloids fatal to any stomach other 

 than that of the appointed consumer; so that 

 animal food is not confined to one and the 

 same eater. What does not man eat, from 

 that delicacy of the arctic regions, soup made 

 of Seal's blood and a scrap of Whale-blubber 

 wrapped in a willow-leaf for a vegetable, to 

 the Chinaman's fried Silk-worm or the 

 Arab's dried Locust? What would he not 

 eat, if he had not to overcome the repug- 

 nance dictated by habit far rather than by 

 actual necessity? The prey being uniform 

 in its nutritive principles, the carnivorous 

 larva ought to accommodate itself to any 

 sort of game, above all if the new dish be 

 not too great a departure from consecrated 

 usage. Thus should I argue, with no less 

 probablhty on my side, had I to begin all 

 over again. But, as all our arguments have 

 not the value of a single fact, I should be 

 forced in the end to resort to experiment. 



I did so the next year, on a larger scale 

 and with a greater variety of subjects. I 

 shrink from a continuous narrative of my ex- 

 periments and of my personal education in this 

 new art, where the failure of one day taught 

 me the way to succeed on the morrow. It 

 would be long and tedious. Enough if I 

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