MIXED DIETS 163 



cally and in texture, is a very different thing from eating 

 the raw carcases of large animals. Man's teeth are 

 thoroughly fitted for the trituration of cooked meat, which 

 is, indeed, as well suited to their mechanical action as are 

 fruits, nuts, and roots. Hence we see that the objection 

 to a meat diet based on the structure of man's teeth does 

 not apply to the use of cooked meat as diet. The use 

 by man of uncooked meat is not proposed or defended. 



Yet, further, it is well to take notice of the fact that there 

 are many vegetarian wild animals which do not hesitate to 

 eat certain soft animals or animal products when they get 

 the chance. Thus, both monkeys and primitive men will 

 eat grubs and small soft animals, and also the eggs of 

 birds. Whilst the cat tribe, in regard to the chemical 

 action of their digestive juices, are so specialised for eating 

 raw meat that it is practically impossible for them to take 

 vegetable matter as even a small portion of their diet, and 

 whilst, on the other hand, the grass-eating cattle, sheep, 

 goats, antelopes, deer and giraffes are similarly disqualiiied 

 from any form of meat-diet, most other land-mammals can 

 be induced, without harm to themselves, to take a mixed 

 diet, even in those cases where they do not naturally seek it. 

 Pigs, on the one hand, and bears, on the other, tend natur- 

 ally to a mixed diet. Many birds, under conditions adverse 

 to the finding of their usual food, will change from vegetable 

 to animal diet, or vice-versd. Sea-gulls normally are fish- 

 eaters, but some will eat biscuit and grain when fish cannot 

 be had. Pigeons have been fed successfully on a meat 

 diet ; so, too, some parrots, and also the familiar barn-door 

 fowl. Many of our smaller birds eat both insects and 

 grain, according to opportunity. Hence it appears impos- 

 sible to base any argurhent against the use of cooked meat 

 as part of man's diet upon the structure of his teeth, or 

 upon any far-reaching law of Nature which decrees that 

 every- animal is absolutely either fitted - (internally, and 



