4 DIGESTION AND FOOD. 



when at liberty refuse. He also becomes a glutton, and fills 

 himself to repletion, devouring far more than when free in 

 the field, and besides hay and oats in abundance, picking up 

 his litter, and being always ready to neigh when the corn 

 bin is approached. 



The exercise connected with the natural collection and 

 selection of food is of great importance to health in herbivora. 

 They cannot fast long, like the lion or dog ; they cannot rest 

 in a state of torpor and listlessness to relieve an over-dis- 

 tended alimentary canal They sometimes eat and kill them- 

 selves by over-feeding, when man heaps before them enormous 

 quantities of food, but that is under circumstances when they 

 cannot rove, and pick and browse, walk and chew, watch 

 and swallow, lie and ruminate, travel for water, and live as 

 nature destined them. 



However trivial such considerations may appear at first 

 sight, they clearly point to the rule to be established, that if 

 treated artificially, animals must be managed according to 

 their habits, unless we wish to disturb and to destroy them. 



A natural craving is manifested in man and animals for 

 that which suits their organism as feeding material. The rock 

 salt which the horse speedily licks up, occasionally with a 

 morbid appetite, is a necessary constituent of his body. The 

 preference for hay over straw, though in part due to its more 

 agreeable taste, is undoubtedly owing to its being more suit- 

 able as diet, and any injurious agents, such as musty hay, or 

 many of the poisonous plants, are judiciously avoided. All 

 animals manifest the same dispositions, and it is needless that 

 I should multiply examples. 



The collection of food varies materially in our different 

 domestic animals. One bolts flesh and coarsely grinds bones, 

 to be deposited in a capacious stomach; another speedily takes 

 in a large quantity, and lodges it for awhile in a crop, or in 



