ON THE FOOD OF ANIMALS. 139 



the bleak mountain's top, is ever healthy and 

 knows nothing of it ? Our race-horses are al- 

 ways wanting the veterinary surgeon, and our 

 dairy cattle the cow-doctor. Our sheep get the 

 rot ; our lapdogs the mange ; and our poultry 

 tumble down in apoplexy. Were these animals 

 allowed to range at large through Nature's wild 

 domain, free from the control of man, we 

 should always see them brisk and vigorous, and 

 as full of health, and as beautiful in their na- 

 tural clothing for the season, as are their con- 

 geners roving independent of all his boasted 

 improvements. 



What a melancholy thing it is to reflect that 

 rational man is perpetually indisposed, and sub- 

 ject to a multiplicity of disorders, which are 

 seldom or ever to be observed in the wild and 

 irrational animals! Flesh and blood, and all 

 their component parts, are the same both in 

 man and beast. Why then should man be 

 doomed to such heavy demands from the doctor 

 and apothecary, whilst the beast, in a state of 

 Nature, can do so well without their aid ? 

 Had Providence doomed the flesh and blood of 

 the inferior animals to the many maladies which 

 haunt our own, there would certainly have been 



