ANIMALS AND THEIR DIET. 405 



larvse upon vegetable matter. Not a few butterflies will sip the juices of dead 

 animals, though in their caterpillar stage they are purely phytophagous. The 

 larvae of the hive-bee are fed upon honey and pollen, without any accompaniment 

 of animal matter. But when mature they may be styled omnivorous, as, in ad- 

 dition to honey and juices of fruits, they are found to lick meat in butcher's 

 shops, and even, according to Fritz . Miiller, to imbibe excrementitious liquids, 

 as do also the butterflies. 



Changes arising .from a scarcity of food, or from caprice, are also on record. 

 The two Carnivora which have become domesticated often partake of vegetable 

 matter. The cat is even known to steal raisins and dried plums, and, according to 

 Mr. Bates, in Brazil it goes into the woods to eat the fruit of the Tucuma palm. 

 But amongst wild animals a change of diet, when it occurs, is almost invariably in 

 the opposite direction, /. e., from vegetable to animal matter. Under this. head 

 must figure the well-known case of the sheep-eating parrot of New Zealand, the 

 outbreak of cannibalism in an aviary of parrots recorded by Dr. Buller, and the 

 zoophagous tastes recently developed by baboons in South Africa, who, accord- 

 ing to Mrs. Carfiy-Hobson,! sometimes kill and devour sheep. These instances 

 show that the habits of animals are not so fixed as was formerly imagined. They 

 have their preferences, and their digestive organs may be better adapted for one 

 kind of food than for another. But with few exceptions they will not starve, 

 and if what may be called their natural food is wanting, or is scarce, they take 

 any substitute which presents itself. Curiously enough, when any species has 

 thus adopted a new diet, it shows a disinclination to return to its former food. 



We have next to consider that the majority of warm-blooded animals are 

 omnivorous, in so far that they consume both animal and vegetable food. 



Thus, beginning with the Primates, it is a great mistake to assert that the 

 apes and monkeys are purely vegetarian in their diet. They never omit an op- 

 portunity of robbing a bird's nest, and they feed with avidity upon a great varie- 

 ty of insects, from fleas upwards. The lemurs are, if anything, a shade more in- 

 clined to animal food than the true monkeys. Even amongst the Carnivora we 

 find not a few which vary their diet more or less with vegetable matter. Thus 

 the bears and their alhes, with the excejDtion of the so-called Polar bear, seem to 

 prefer fruits, roots, honey, insects, and even grain before it is quite ripe and 

 hardened. The Viverridse also include some fruit-eating members, such as the 

 civet-cat. There is no satisfactory evidence that any of the cats in a wild state 

 will consume vegetable matter, but at least two groups of the Canidas — the foxes 

 and the jackals — are not averse to fruit. 



Among the Rodents an omnivorous character is becoming more and more 

 fully established. The squirrels, in addition to fruits, nuts, and grain, greedily 

 devour eggs, nestling birds, and insects ; the hamster, the so-called Norwegian 

 rat (Waterton's Hanoverian, but which might be better styled the Russian), even 

 the common mouse, and indeed all the true Muridse, are omnivorous. We have 



1 Knowledge, March 17, 1832. 

 VI— 26 



