USEFUL AETS. 



CHAPTER VII. 



FOOD AND COMFOKT. 



Parents and their Young. — Milk, and the various "Ways of obtaining and using it. 

 —The Kafir Tribes and Clotted Milk.— The Tonga Islanders.— The Tartars. 

 — Ants and Aphides. — Honey-dew. — Milch Cows in Insect-land. — Fish-tanks 

 and Aquaria. — Bill of the Pelican. — Eggs and Chickens. — The Hen-coop. — 

 Nest of Termite. — Workers and Queen. — Egg-hatching.— The Hen and her 

 Young. — Artificial Egg-hatching Machine. — The Snake and her Eggs. — 

 The Gad-fly and Bot-fly. — Preservation of Provisions. — Hanging Meat. — 

 Eggs of the Lace-wing Fly. — Spider-eggs. — The Butcher's Hook and the 

 Claws of the Sloth. — Bats and Insects. 



rpHIS subject is necessarily a very large one, and I shall, in 

 -*- consequence, be obliged to compress it, though it might 

 •well make a separate work by itself. For Food represents the 

 very existence of Man, considered as one of the animal world ; 

 and Comfort represents the progress of civilisation, by which 

 man leaves day by day his savage and solitary nature behind 

 him, and becomes social, moral, and elevated. 



Putting aside the instinct which forces the parent to feed 

 the young without external assistance, we come to those cases 

 where the parent has to seek food which the offspring could 

 not have found for itself, and often to prepare it for the use of 

 the offspring. 



In the greater part of the world, the milk of various animals 

 is the staple of food, not only for children, but adults ; and the 

 " milk diet," as it is called, is strongly urged by many phy- 

 sicians of the present day. 



The Kafir tribes, for example, a wonderfully powerful race 

 of men, live almost wholly on sour milk, mixed with maize 

 flour, never eating such valuable animals as kine except on 



