210 UTILITARIAN ZOOLOGY 



stant frays suffering from a cutaneous disorder by high feeding 

 and altogether a disgusting spectacle. There is no sight in the 

 world more revolting than to see a young and gracefully-formed 

 native girl stepping out of the carcase of a putrid whale ' (Gray's 

 Explorations in North- West and Western Australia). The 

 Australians also mash up bones and suck out the fat contained in 

 them. Like other savages, they are excessively fond of fatty 

 substances/' 



To illustrate a predominatingly animal diet we may take the 

 following menu of an Esquimaux feast, given by comparatively 

 civilized individuals: " A factor being invited to a great enter- 

 tainment with several topping Greenlanders counted the follow- 

 ing dishes: i. Dried herrings. 2. Dried seal's flesh. 3. Boiled 

 ditto. 4. Half-raw and rotten ditto, called mikiak. 5. Boiled 

 willocks [sea-birds]. 6. A piece of a half-rotten whale's tail 

 (this was the dainty dish or haunch of venison to which the 

 guests were properly invited). 7. Dried salmon. 8. Dried 

 reindeer venison. 9. A dessert of crowberries mixed with the 

 chyle out of the maw of a reindeer. 10. The same, enriched 

 with train oil." (Crantz History of Greenland.] It may be 

 added that blood is a favourite Esquimaux drink. 



Even among civilized nations fish and molluscs are important 

 articles of food, and it is interesting to know that this was also 

 the case during the Stone Age. Along the shores of Denmark 

 and many other countries, including Britain, are to be found, 

 more or less abundantly, shell-mounds or " kitchen -middens " 

 (Danish kjokkenmoddings], the sites of many a prehistoric meal. 

 In Danish mounds the shells of oysters, cockles, mussels, and 

 periwinkles are by far the most abundant, and with them are 

 associated the bones of fishes (herring, dab, eel, &c.), birds, 

 (capercailzie, duck, swan, goose, &c.), and mammals (deer, wild 

 boar, &c). Remains of domesticated animals are entirely absent, 

 except of the dog, and many of the bones have been gnawed 

 by this half-wild attendant at the feasts. Darwin's account (in 

 A Natiiralist's Voyage] of some of the inhabitants of Tierra 

 del Fuego furnishes a modern parallel to the kind of life led 

 by the prehistoric men of the shell -mounds, except that the 

 latter were probably in better case. He says: " The inha- 

 bitants, living chiefly upon shell-fish, are obliged constantly to 

 change their place of residence; but they return at intervals to 



