and food. He was probably not intended for any one residence more than another. He was intended for just what his instincts and propensities lead him to. As much for a hot climate as a temperate one, and as much for a cold one as either.

But though thus capable of living upon this variety of food, there is an almost necessary connection between certain conditions of life and its kind and quantity. In cold climates, not only a larger quantity is required, and of animal origin, but also that containing a great proportion of fatty matter. This is supposed to be rendered necessary in order to maintain the animal heat by its consumption. In hot climates, on the contrary, where this is hardly at all required, the quantity of food may be less, and especially of that containing fat. So, too, great bodily labor is supposed to be best maintained on a large proportion of animal food, but a sedentary and indolent life to require chiefly that of vegetable origin. There is probably a general truth in these opinions, but the deviations are so many as to render them liable to much modification.

Thus in the interior of Africa, in a hot climate, we are informed by travellers that the capacity for taking and digesting food is great. Dr. Oudney says of the Tuaricks, "We were told of two men who consumed three sheep at a meal; another who eat a kail of bruised dates, with a corresponding quantity of milk; another who eat about a hundred loaves of the size of an English penny loaf."

Still there is no reasonable doubt that in cold climates the demand for fatty animal food is more uniform, and the capacity of subsisting without it is less, than in warm. Indeed the instinctive avidity for it is sometimes almost startling. Captain Cochrane relates, that in Siberia he saw a child scrape up candle grease from the floor to eat, as a child with us might scrape up molasses. He gave it three tallow candles, several pounds of frozen sour butter, and a large piece of yellow soap. All were eaten with avidity. The Yakeite or Tongousi will eat anything, however putrid or repulsive. He has seen one of them eat forty pounds of meat in a day, and three of them eat a reindeer at a meal. Captain Parry, in his Voyage to the North Pole, states the following experiment on a young Esquimaux lad, scarcely full grown, not as

anything uncommon, but simply as an illustration of the demand for food, and the capacity for digesting it, among persons enduring the cold of a northern climate. The following amount of food and drink was dealt out, and consumed by him in the course of twenty hours, without any apparent inconvenience:

The whole would amount to about twenty-one pounds of solids and liquids, or about one sixth of the weight of his whole body. This quantity, however, enormous as it is, is far exceeded by that devoured by some birds. Professor Treadwell, of Cambridge, noted carefully the amount of food consumed by a young robin during its period of growth, and found that he eat greedily more than his own weight of solid food daily, consisting chiefly of earth-worms and butchers' meat. At one period in the course of the experiment the daily weight of his food was thirty-four dwt., while his own was twenty-four dwt. He therefore consumed about forty-one per cent. more than his own weight.

It is found that those animals whose mode of life requires great, violent, and sudden exertions of strength, are carnivorous; whilst rapid and persevering motion is chiefly observed in the herbivorous. Of the former, we have examples in the lion and tiger; of the latter, in the horse and reindeer. But it is very doubtful whether any just argument can be derived from this analogy, in favor of any particular views concerning the food of man, or its adaptation to particular kinds of labor.

There is sufficient reason to believe, as the result of all that is known on this subject, that the best food for man is a combination of animal and vegetable, differing in the proportion they bear to each other according to climate and occupation; that he is better nourished and developed if he has a considerable variety of diet; and that the digestibility of most substances is improved by being cooked. But even this last is not universally true, since among savage nations meat is often eaten raw and is thus preferred. A late traveller in Abyssinia (Mr. Parkyns) states this to be the case in that country, and that the inhabitants regard meat as more tender and relishing if cut directly from the animal when life is barely extinct; that not long after death the fibre becomes tough and less delicious. Accordingly at the feasts of the higher classes a cow is slaughtered on the spot, and the warm flesh served up to the company, just as it is cut in strips from the warm and still quivering carcass. In Dr. Kane's narrative of his late expedition to the polar seas, many facts are stated which indicate not only the capacity of man for thriving on raw flesh, but also its superior adaptation, under certain circumstances, to his support under great labor, hardship, and exposure to cold, and also to the prevention and removal of disease.

In the selection of particular articles among different vegetable and animal substances, man is determined very much by caprice, prejudice, and accident, and sometimes by superstition. Locusts are esteemed excellent food by some nations, and are eaten in large quantities, roasted, boiled, and dried. A European or American would almost shudder at the idea of feeding upon the common grasshopper, which is probably as suitable food. The Australian devours with avidity grubs and worms; the African feeds upon ants; we regard oysters and clams as excellent articles of diet, whilst snails, leeches, and worms are rejected with loathing. There is good reason to believe that the flesh of animals which we should shrink from with disgust, is in reality perfectly well adapted to the wants and probably would be to the taste of man, as the horse, dog, cat, rat, and mouse. Indeed they are all eaten by some nations, and even by Europeans when pressed by hunger.

many

A strange kind of food is resorted to in times of scarcity by

the savage nations of different parts of the world, namely, earth, either by itself, or mixed with other articles. The kind usually resorted to is an unctuous, almost tasteless clay. On the banks of the Orinoco, this is kneaded into cakes, baked before a slow fire, and preserved for use. By habit it becomes agreeable to the palate, and is eaten even when not rendered necessary by the want of other suitable food. The slaves in the West Indies have been specially addicted to dirt-eating, and although from its supposed injurious effect it was forbidden by their owners, they were with difficulty restrained from the practice. This practice has been chiefly observed in the torrid regions. It is not, however, confined to them, but prevails also in China, Finland, and Lapland. Part of the influence of this kind of food is probably due to the feeling of fulness which it gives to the digestive organs, and which is necessary to the perfect satisfaction of the appetite; but it has also been supposed that there may be mixed with the earth large quantities of animalcules which give to it a nutritious quality.

In the interior of South Africa, according to Dr. Livingstone, there is a tree, called mopané, on whose “ leaves the small larvæ of a winged insect appear, covered over with a sweet, gummy substance. The people collect this in great quantities, and use it as food; and the copavè-large caterpillars three inches long, which feed on the leaves, and are seen strung together - share the same fate."

A too exclusive confinement to a particular kind of diet, especially to a very limited number of articles, with very little variety of kind, is apt to be productive of disease, or at least to interfere with the proper growth and development of the body. In some public institutions, under such a diet, dysentery of a bad character has prevailed. The scurvy is occasioned by a too exclusive use of salted provisions, with a deficiency of fruit and vegetables. Captain Franklin, on his land journey to the arctic regions, found that his men contracted dysentery from an exclusive diet of dried flesh and fish; that they were enfeebled by it, particularly by the latter. Those Eastern nations that live chiefly on rice, are weak and inefficient, incapable of great exertion, and liable to many diseases, probably to be attributed to this kind of

food. The chiefs of many of the South Sea Islands, who are well fed, are large and strong; whilst the lower classes, on the contrary, whose food is poor, and who seldom taste flesh, are small and weak. The same general difference may be observed among the nations of Europe, when the condition of the higher classes is compared with that of the lower. Loss of health, disease, and death have been largely produced among soldiers of the English army by an exclusive diet of even so nourishing articles as boiled beef, bread, and potatoes.

It is partly by his power of thus accommodating himself to various kinds of food, that man is capable of residing in all the different regions of the earth. It is partly also owing to his skill and address in cultivating the earth, and in procuring various forms of animal food by hunting, fishing, and domestication, and to the sagacity which enables him to avail himself of the protection afforded by habitations, clothing, and the use of fire. It is the want of these which confines other animals for the most part within certain limits. The frugivorous animals of the torrid zone would perish in the frigid, from cold and the want of fruits and vegetables. The polar bear, the walrus, and other inhabitants of the arctic regions, would probably meet with the same fate in those around the equator. A few animals, especially the dog, have been found the usual attendants upon man in his distribution over the earth; but even these appear to owe their capacity for enduring these migrations to the aid of their common master, and to the extension to them of the same expedients which he has found necessary for himself.

This relation of animals to each other, and of the animal kingdom to the vegetable, is one of the causes which regulate the distribution of life over the earth. Some species are confined to a very narrow range, others extend over a wide. None, perhaps, are dispersed over a whole continent, and only a few are common to the two hemispheres. This is in some part determined by their several demands for food. Every vegetable substance is fed upon by animals, or in its decay affords nourishment to other vegetables. Every animal is liable to become in its turn the prey of other animals. If not devoured alive by its enemies, it furnishes a feast to worms and insects after its death,