ANIMAL NUTRITION. 59 



each the quantity and the kind most consonant 

 to enlarged views of prospective beneficence, is 

 calculated to excite our highest wonder and 

 admiration. While the waste is the smallest 

 possible, we find that nothing which can afford 

 nutriment is wholly lost. There is no part of the 

 organized structure of an animal or vegetable, 

 however dense its texture, or acrid its qualities, 

 that may not, under certain circumstances, be- 

 come the food of some species of insect, or con- 

 tribute in some mode to the support of animal 

 life. The more succulent parts of plants, such 

 as the leaves, or softer stems, are the principal 

 sources of nourishment to the greater number of 

 larger quadrupeds, to multitudes of insects, as 

 well as to numerous tribes of other animals. 

 Some plants are more particularly assigned as the 

 appropriate nutriment of particular species, which 

 would perish if these ceased to grow : thus the 

 silkworm subsists almost exclusively upon the 

 leaves of the mulberry tree ; and many species of 

 caterpillars are attached each to a particular 

 plant which they prefer to all others. There are 

 at least fifty different species of insects that feed 

 upon the common nettle ; and plants, of which the 

 juices are most acrid and poisonous to the gene- 

 rality of animals, such as Euphorbimn, Henbane, 

 and Nightshade, afford a wholesome and deli- 

 cious food to others. Innumerable tribes of ani- 

 mals subsist upon fruits and seeds ; while others 



