CHAPTER XII 

 FOOD AND COOKERY 



A NIMALS, taking one kind with another, nourish 

 <L\. themselves on an immense variety of food. The 

 flesh and the blood of other animals of all kinds, warm or 

 cold, the leaves, twigs, fruits, juices of plants, putrid 

 carcases, hair, feathers, skin, bran, sawdust, the vegetable 

 mould or " humus " of the earth's surface, the sand of the 

 sea, with its minute particles of organic detritus, all serve 

 as food to different kinds of animals. Some are very 

 little fettered in their tastes, and are called " omnivorous," 

 others are bound in the strictest way to a diet consisting 

 of the leaves of some one species of plant or the juices of 

 one species of animal. Some of the latter class, under 

 stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new 

 food very different in character and origin from that 

 which is habitual to them ; others have no elasticity in 

 this respect, and must have their exact habitual food- 

 plant or food-animal, unless they are to die of starvation. 

 Man exhibits his great powers of accommodation to 

 changed circumstances in respect of food as well as in 

 other matters. If we are to suppose, as is probable, that 

 our original ape-like ancestors fed exclusively upon fruits 

 and an occasional egg or juicy grub, how vast are the 

 changes in diet to which man has habituated himself! 

 Man is sometimes said to be omnivorous, but this is not 

 a sufficient description of the state of things which has 



