THE FOOD OF YOUNG ANIMALS 191 



there are many useful brands of condensed milk which can be 

 employed. Those which are unsweetened are most easy to work 

 with, and the well-known " Ideal " brand serves well. If Ideal 

 milk be diluted with nearly twice its bulk of plain warm water, it 

 will contain fairly exactly the right proportions of proteins, fats 

 and sugar for ruminating herbivores. To use it for animals like 

 the horse, rhinoceros and tapir, it should be diluted with not quite 

 four times its bulk of thin barley-water, and will then be nearly 

 correct so far as proteins go, but some sugar should be added. It 

 will still contain a slight excess of fat, but this is of little importance 

 and may be neglected. To prepare it for young monkeys, it should 

 be diluted with rather more than four times its bulk of barley- 

 water, which will bring the protein nearly right and the fat almost 

 exactly right, but sugar must be added. To prepare it for carni- 

 vores, a very little warm water should be added, not more than just 

 enough to make it possible to feed the animal with it. It will 

 contain too much sugar, but this may be neglected, and not quite 

 enough protein, which may be easily put right by adding a squeeze 

 of raw meat juice. 



The milk of individual animals of the same species varies so much 

 that very exact measurements of the proportions of the different 

 substances are not worth the trouble of making. The really neces- 

 sary things to observe are the proper intervals between feeding for 

 the different types of animals, and the proper dilution or enriching 

 of the milk, the warming of it before giving it while the animals 

 are very young, and the most scrupulous cleanliness and fresh- 

 ness of everything used. If it be at all possible, not more than 

 enough for one meal should be mixed at one time, and all the waste 

 should be thrown away, and a fresh start made for the next meal. 

 More young animals are lost from neglect of these precautions than 

 jfrom any inexactness in the proportions or quantities used. 



All young mammals pass gradually from a milk diet to the 

 ordinary food of their kind, and under natural conditions the 

 process of weaning is not abrupt. Young carnivores begin to pick 

 at scraps from the prey of the parents almost as soon as their eyes 

 are open and they are able to move about freely. When they are 

 being reared by hand, they should be given raw meat as soon as 

 they will take it freely, and the mistake of keeping them from it 

 too long is made more often than that of giving it to them too soon. 

 The cubs and kittens of all the cats, from the lion down to the 

 smallest wild cat, can digest raw meat very soon, and if they have 



