THE FOOD OF YOUNG ANIMALS 193 



proportion to its bulk. Boiled potatoes, wholemeal bread, rather 

 hard apples, vegetables with plenty of fibre in them, should form 

 the bulk of their food, but they will not take such things if they are 

 accustomed to grapes and ripe bananas, sweet biscuits and carefully 

 prepared milk puddings. Young monkeys, even more than young 

 carnivores, should be accustomed to have their mouths opened, 

 and to be fed with a spoon. They are delicate, even when they are 

 not shut up in a warmed house and allowed free access to the open 

 air in all weathers, and one of the first symptoms of illness is the 

 refusal of food. They are almost as difficult to feed forcibly without 

 doing them damage as are hysterical women, unless' they are 

 thoroughly accustomed to being handled. 



Young herbivorous animals of all kinds begin to pick at any 

 kind of vegetable food in a few days, although they may continue 

 to suck for months, or even years, until the mother ceases to give 

 milk. In captivity they should be encouraged to eat, but dry 

 foods of all kinds, especially dried leaves and clover, are most whole- 

 some for them. If they are being hand-reared, however, they 

 should not have free access to such food at all times until they have 

 begun to ruminate, but small quantities should be given them 

 instead of one of their milk meals, and cleared away after a quarter 

 of an hour, or given immediately before a meal and similarly cleared 

 away. For that reason it is better to keep them on a litter such as 

 peat-moss, which they will not nibble, than on soft hay or straw. 



The appetites of all young animals are very capricious if they 

 are not thriving, and unless they have been accustomed to hand- 

 feeding, they must be tempted in all sorts of ways, with all sorts of 

 flavours, before the last expedient of forcibly cramming them is 

 adopted. Quite a surprising number of different kinds of little 

 mammals can be persuaded, if some one sits down patiently beside 

 them and makes sucking and chewing noises and pretends to eat 

 the food. Monkeys are so like human beings that this device is 

 quite naturally successful in many cases. But I have used it myself 

 successfully with a caracal cub, a little hyrax, a bear cub, a puppy 

 and a young rabbit, and seen it employed with many other kinds 

 of animals. The most successful person I have ever seen in in- 

 ducing creatures to eat was an ignorant Irish peasant woman, 

 who treated them all as human infants, coaxing them, scolding 

 them and petting them. The great matter is to get them to eat 

 anything first, and then gradually to change them to a proper diet. 

 All sorts of unexpected flavours are occasionally relished by animals. 



C.A. N 



