The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 2 (of 6)

Chapter 366: CHAP. 91.—DIVERSITIES IN THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS.

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The volume assembles an encyclopedic survey of the known world and its living inhabitants, moving from detailed regional geography and descriptions of seas, rivers, islands, and peoples to extended treatments of humanity, its generation, anatomy, and the origins and inventions of arts. Subsequent books catalog terrestrial animals—their habits, capture, and uses—followed by comprehensive observations on fish and marine creatures, their sizes and behaviors. Accounts mix naturalistic description, reported marvels, medicinal uses derived from animals, and travel and secondhand reports, organized as topical chapters intended as a practical compendium of natural and human phenomena.

CHAP. 91.—DIVERSITIES IN THE FEEDING OF ANIMALS.

I am strongly inclined to believe, too, that the sense of taste exists in all animals; for why else should one seek one kind of food, and another another? And it is in this more especially that is to be seen the wondrous power of Nature, the framer of all things. Some animals seize their prey with their teeth, others, again, with their claws; some tear it to pieces with their hooked beak; others, that have a broad bill, wabble in their food; others, with a sharp nib, work holes into it; others suck at their food; others, again, lick it, others sup it in, others chew it, and others bolt it whole. And no less a diversity is there in the uses they make of their feet, for the purpose of carrying, tearing asunder, holding, squeezing, suspending 3128 their bodies, or incessantly scratching the ground.