Chap, xi.] OF ALIMENTATION IN GENERAL 1^5 



The identity of the process and the result of digestion in 

 herbivora and carnivora being demonstrated, there is no cause 

 for astonishment in the facility with which a herbivorous animal 

 can become a carnivorous animal, and inversely. 



The herbivora especially become accustomed without much 

 difficulty to an animal diet. Organised for the greater, it costs 

 them little to accommodate themselves to the less. 



Numerous facts of this kind have in science an almost com- 

 mon-place notoriety. Spallanzani had accustomed a pigeon to 

 eat meat to such a point that it afterwards refused seeds. 



The cows and horses of Iceland feed willingly upon dried fish. 

 Horses and oxen accustomed to feed upon fish have been seen to 

 enter the water to fish for themselves. * Besides, all the herbi- 

 vorous mammifers are necessarily carnivorous during the period 

 of lactation. Also, during this period, the rumen of ruminants 

 is not yet developed.^ 



Amongst the carnivora, the most robust, the most typical 

 sometimes actually refuse vegetal nourishment. The tiger, the 

 lion, the eagle, habitually allow themselves to die of hunger 

 rather than touch it. Nevertheless, Spallanzani had accustomed 

 an eagle to eat and digest bread. 



Native repugnances can be most frequently overcome by call- 

 ing in the help of the culinary art. It is, moreover, in a great 

 measure to this circumstance that man owes his omnivorous 

 chai-acter. Dogs and cats do not eat corn, but they will eat 

 bread. The rabbit refuses large pieces of raw meat, but it 

 willingly accepts and digests meat minced or boiled. 



Certain animals are at once carnivorous and herbivorous, as, 

 for instance, a number of birds. Others are frugivorous in 

 winter, and insectivorous in summer. The small frugivorous 

 monkeys eat insects, and seek eagerly for eggs and for little birds 

 scarcely hatched. ^ 



^ Burdach, Fhysiologie, t. IX., p. 241. 



' Gegenbaur, Manuel d'Anatomie Comparie, p. 748. 



s M. Schiff, Digestion, t. II., p. 187. 



