208 PHYSICAL CAUSES OF 



diet in the horse produces irritability, restiveness and 

 viciousness (Pierquin). Long ago it was observed by De la 

 Mettrie : ' Raw meat gives fierceness to animals, and would 

 do the same to man. This is so true that the English, who 

 eat their meat underdone, seem to partake of this fierce- 

 ness, more or less, as shown in pride, hatred, and contempt 

 of other nations.' There may be more truth in this remark 

 of our French critic than we are willing to admit. At all 

 events there can be no doubt of the more stimulant character 

 of animal than of vegetable food. 



6 High feeding ' of all kinds, in animals not accustomed 

 to it, may beget a fatal pugnacity, e.g. in rams (Baker). In 

 preparing the elephant for show-fights in India such, for 

 instance, as those which took place before the Prince of 

 Wales at Baroda, in November, 1875 males are selected 

 and 'kept for months previously on a diet in which butter 

 and sugar are the principal ingredients, the effect of which 

 is to bring them into a ferocity of temper which is known as 

 Musth.' 1 



The result of the specialisation of food, and of a careful 

 dietetic upbringing, is illustrated in the psychical character, 

 as well as the bodily organisation, of the worker eggs, or 

 larvae, among hive bees, which are fed on royal jelly and 

 treated as queen larvse. They become in time perfect queens 

 (Carpenter). The influence of food in its minor degree is 

 more familiar, however, in the cat. According as its food 

 is mainly or entirely vegetable or animal, its natural cha- 

 racter and habits are intensified or modified. It becomes 

 either more savage on the one hand, or more docile and 

 gentle on the other. 



Hunger leads to fretfulness of temper and anger in birds 

 (Adams), to irritability in the dog. It is not, therefore, only 

 the ' hungry man ' that is ' angry.' Hunger leads also to 

 combativeness and wars in bees (Reaumur). Starvation is 

 only too common a mode or means of artificially producing 

 the degree of ferocity required in the sports of tyrant man 

 for instance, in the case of so-called 'fighting' beetles. 



1 Scotsman,' November 22, 1875. 



