282 INDIVIDUALITY. 



many children do (Wilks). And here it so happens that the 

 taste of the bird agrees with that of the child, and is there- 

 fore intelligible on the supposition that in both cases the 

 sensation produced by the sugary material is pleasurable. 

 But other instances of equally decided food-tastes among the 

 lower animals cannot be so easily accounted for, if accounted 

 for at all. Thus, as an illustration of the oddities of taste in 

 certain animals, a correspondent of ' Science Gossip ' writes 

 of a cat : ' She would never under any circumstances drink 

 milk, nor, if she could help it, clean water; but would 

 greedily lap soapy water in which one's hands had been 

 washed, seeming to prefer this to any other drink.' On the 

 other hand, a pet hedgehog on board ship was c very fond of 

 milk,' and raw fresh meat was her favourite food. c She 

 would not taste any fruit except raisins, of which she was 

 very fond ' (Mrs. Mackellar). The chimpanzee has a special 

 liking for roast meat, milk, wine, and sugared articles (Gas- 

 sell). The camel has a marked predilection for garlic. 

 Other animals show a preferential appreciation of tea or 

 coffee, tobacco or other substances, solid or fluid, to which 

 they are utterly unaccustomed in their natural or wild state. 



Distaste for certain foods and drinks, natural or artificial, 

 may be, and frequently is, as marked, as singular, as unac- 

 countable, as is the taste for certain others. And in some 

 cases, as in that of certain tastes, the cause is, or appears to 

 be, obvious and intelligible. Thus Belt mentions a theftuous 

 monkey that stole a bottle of turpentine, uncorked it, smelt 

 it first with one nostril, then with another, and returned the 

 bottle without tasting its contents, but making a wry face, 

 as if in disgust, to the person from whom it was stolen. 

 And here it is worthy of note that the animal showed 

 unusual sagacity and caution in judging by smell and re- 

 fraining from tasting the pungent liquor. But there was a 

 curious incautiousness and injudiciousness apparently in its 

 voluntary proclamation of its theft. 



Belt also mentions a tame white-faced monkey that 

 would never eat heliconii (a kind of butterfly). A certain 

 spider of Nicaragua had the same food-aversion : it c used 

 to drop them out of its web when I put them into it,' he 



