MENTAL DIFFERENCE AND DISORDER. 209 



Hunger, by begetting quarrelsomeness and fighting, over- 

 comes the results of discipline and the sense of obedience 

 and fear sometimes in the f happy families ' of menageries. 



On the other hand, harmony is unquestionably pro- 

 duced by, and indeed depends upon, good feeding. An 

 abundant and suitable food-supply bears a striking relation 

 to the important mental quality contentment ; and its in- 

 fluence in the production of vivacity, exhilaration, energy 

 mental as well as muscular and nervous of courage, perse- 

 verance, willingness to work, is well known in the case of 

 the horse, dog, fowl, and other domestic animals (Pierquin). 



Excess in food is quite as deleterious and dangerous to 

 both the mental and bodily condition of an animal as its 

 deficiency or complete privation. The physical effects include 

 death from mere surfeit, from gorging, gluttony, overfeeding 

 or overeating to an inordinate extent. 



Many birds that habitually overeat die from excess of fat 

 in the system, from what is technically called fatty degenera- 

 tion, while during life they suffer from an obesity that inter- 

 feres materially with progression, or with flight from, or 

 opposition to, an enemy (White). 



Among its commoner results are semi-somnolence, stupor, 

 and helplessness, inability to move or defend themselves, 

 rendering the gorged animals easy of capture by man. Such 

 results of overfeeding, especially the rendering an otherwise 

 dangerous animal innocuous and manageable, are taken 

 advantage of by man in many ways. Thus, when it became 

 necessary to remove the boas in the menagerie of the Jardin 

 des Plantes, Paris, from an old to a new house, it sufficed to 

 overfeed them ; they then became ' as easy to handle by the 

 keepers as so many cables.' Morbid voracity, excessive greed 

 in eating, produces a kind of stupidity, and thereby leads to 

 facility of capture by man, in the albatross, vulture, siskin, 

 and other birds. 



Gorged animals also minister to man's amusements, some- 

 times of a very cruel kind. Thus we are told that e a favourite 

 amusement of the native children (of New Guinea) was to 

 chase vultures when they had so stuffed themselves as to be 

 unable to fly. And it was laughable to see the ungainly 

 VOL. n. p 



M 



r- . 



