Part II. ^';^ /;&^ Creation. 345 



Food is high and rank, do qualify it, the one by 

 Iwallowing the Hair or Fur of the Beafts they 

 prey upon, the other by devouring fome part of 

 the Feathers of the Birds they gorge themfelves 

 with, not eledtively, but becaufe they cannot or 

 will not take the Pains fully to plume them ; and 

 therefore the F arifian Academijis do rationally re- 

 fer the Death of one of the Lions whom they dif- 

 fed^ed, to the feeding of him with too fucculent 

 and delicate Meat ; for (fay they) we know that 

 fome time before his Death he was feveral Months 

 without going out of his Den, and that it was 

 hard to make him eat ; that for this reafon fome 

 Remedies were prefcrib'd to him, and among 

 others the eating only the Flefh of young Ani- 

 mals,and thofe alive ; and that thofe which look'd 

 to the Beafts of the Park of Vicennes^ to make this 

 Food more delicate, did ufe a Method very extra- 

 ordinary i which was, they flead Lambs alive, and 

 thus made him eat feveral ; which at the firft re- 

 vived him, creating in him an Appetite, and ma- 

 king him brifk ; but it is probable that this Food 

 engender'd ^too much Blood, and which was too 

 fubtile for an Animal to whom Nature had not 

 given the Induftry of flcaing thofe which he eat ; 

 it being credible that the Hair, Wool, Feathers, 

 and Scales, which all Animals of Prey do fvval- 

 low, are a feafonable and neceifary Corrective, 

 to prevent their G reed inefs from filling them- 

 felves with too fucculent a Food. 



Tho' I have declared in the beginning of this 

 Work that the Means whereby cartilaginous 



Fifties 



