An essay on abstinence from animal food, as a moral duty / By Joseph Ritson.
- Q6286581
- Date:
- 1802
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An essay on abstinence from animal food, as a moral duty / By Joseph Ritson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
60/258 page 46
![young wood-pigeon, even, a fpecies of bird, which is univerfally known to feed upon any thing rather than fleth, has, by dint of hunger, been brought to relifh flefh. fo as to refufe tons Voyage to Surat, p. 425.) “ That nourifhment,” fays Goldfmith, “ which is prepareéd by the hand of man, chofen not tothc appetites of domestick animals, but to {uit hisowncon- venience, produces a number of distinctions, that are not to be found among the favage animals. Thefe, at firft, were but accidental, but, in time, became hereditary ; and a,new race of artificial monfters are propagated, rather to anfwer the pur- pofe of human pleafure, than their own convenience. In fhort, their very appetites may be changed, and thofe that feed only upon grafs, may be rendered carnivorous. I have feen a fheep,’” he ads, ‘* that would eat flefh, and‘ a’ horfe that was fond: of oyfters.”? (Hiffory of tbe earth, ii, 327.) In the Oracle for January 6, 1790, 18 an account of a horfe devour- ing a fheep. The latter animal, when conftrain’d by hunger, wil certainly eat fleth, or any thing it can get. “ A gentle. man living about Ballaneah, im the countie of Cavan [in Ire- land], took great pains to fave his theep [in a great fall of fnow, 1635], yet misfed eleven of them. Some dayes'after, being come forth to courfe, his man faw from a farre off, upon a hill, in a hollow place of a rock, fomething alive and ftirring...‘ and’ comming near they found it was the loft theep; the which had fheer eaten away all the wool from one anothers back...and, which is more.wonderfull, one of them being dead, the reft did eat her fleth, leaving nothing but the bare bones.” Boates Natural hifory, p. 174.) See. allfo Hearnes Fourney inte the northerm ocean, p. 244.) Dogs, on the contrary, 4](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33088494_0060.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
