210 PHYSICAL CAUSES OF 



attempts of the birds to escape by running. They frequently 

 fell over, arid then the children were almost sure to effect 

 their capture before they could rise again' (Lawson). 



Gorging with animal food in man induces a somnolence 

 resembling that of the carnivora (Eadcliffe). 



Overeating is a common result or vice of confinement, 

 excess of food, that is and especially of highly stimulating 

 food in relation to the amount of exercise or work. Over- 

 feeding is usually associated with improper feeding among 

 our domestic pets for instance, pet birds to whom over- 

 indulgent and injudicious mistresses too frequently give raw 

 meat, bread, sweets, and, in general, portions of all the foods, 

 and perhaps drinks also, they themselves employ. 



The result is not only the development of various forms 

 of bodily disease, which frequently prove fatal, but of various 

 marked changes of temper, irritability being very often, and 

 pugnacity or ferocity occasionally, induced. The same kind 

 of injudicious feeding is common on the part of thoughtless, 

 careless visitors to menageries and zoological gardens ; for 

 instance, to the Zoological Gardens of London, whereby the 

 lives of many valuable animals have been sacrificed. There 

 is now, and most properly, in the latter gardens, a strict 

 prohibition against visitors attempting to feed any of the 

 animals. These are simple illustrations of man's minor sins 

 of ignorance or thoughtlessness against the lower animals. 



Berkeley describes certain kinds of food such as putrid 

 horse-flesh as occasionally producing temporary insanity in 

 his bloodhound Druid, ' if neglectfully or improperly given ; ' 

 while Fleming points out that the eating of anthrax-tainted 

 flesh gives rise to other symptoms of blood-poisoning. 



Various kinds of food are poisonous to the lower animals, 

 as to man, though it does not follow that the same substances 

 are poisonous to all classes of animals. Thus certain fish 

 and shell-fish (e.g. certain mussels) which, when eaten by 

 man, or by certain men, give rise to the development of 

 peculiar mental symptoms, probably produce the same result 

 in certain other animals, though not necessarily so. For it 

 has been abundantly established that some substances which 

 are poisonous to man, and to various animals, are quite in- 



