In Norway, or at least in some districts of that country, the cattle are housed during the long winter months, and fed partially upon hay, but more plentifully on a kind of diet, which, strange and disgusting as we may think it, is said to be much relished. This consists of a thick gelatinous soup, made by boiling the heads of fish, and mixing horse-dung with the broth; so that the boat of a Norwegian farmer supplies not only himself and his family with the staple portion of winter subsistence, but his cows also.
We doubt much whether any wild herbivorous animals will feed upon poisonous plants; they are constantly in the exercise of their instinctive faculties, and to these faculties the organs of taste (and smell) administer. Hence they constantly reject all that is deleterious. But this is not the case with domestic animals, whose instinct is much enfeebled, or curbed, from the peculiar circumstances in which they are placed. Hence accidents often happen, to the great loss of the farmer; for example, both horses and horned cattle will crop the foliage of the yew, which offers a temptation to them, especially if underfed, or fed almost exclusively on dry fodder; the foliage of the yew is poisonous. Cattle often perish from eating the long-leaved water hemlock, or cowbane, (Cicuta virosa.) "When Linnæus visited Tornea, he found a terrible malady sweeping away the cattle of the district, and which he at once traced to the long-leaved water hemlock. Scarcely, in fact, had he crossed the river, and landed from his boat on the meadow, before he felt convinced of the origin of the mischief. This deadly plant grew there in abundance, and it appeared that as soon as the cattle left off their winter fodder, and returned to pasturage, they died swollen and convulsed; as the summer came on the mortality decreased, and still more so with the advance of autumn.
"The least attention," says Linnæus, "will convince us that brutes reject whatever is hurtful to them, and distinguish poisonous from salutary plants by natural instinct, so that this plant is not eaten by them in the summer and autumn, which is the reason that in those seasons so few cattle die; namely, such only as either by accident or pressed by extreme hunger eat of it. But when they are let into the pastures in spring, partly from their greediness after fresh herbs, and partly from the emptiness and hunger they have undergone during a long winter, they devour every green thing which comes in their way. It happens, moreover, that herbs at this time are small, and scarcely supply food in sufficient quantity. They are, besides, more juicy, and covered with water, and smell less strong, so that what is noxious is not easily discerned from what is wholesome. I observed, likewise, that the radical leaves were always bitter, the other not, which confirms what I have just said. I saw this plant in an adjoining meadow, mowed along with grass for winter fodder; and, therefore, it is not wonderful that some cattle, though but a few, should die of it in winter. After I left Tornea, I saw no more of this plant till I came to the vast meadows near Limmingen, where it appeared along the road, and when I got into the town I heard the same complaints as at Tornea, of the annual loss of cattle, with the same circumstances." Monkshood, meadow-sweet, hemlock, (Conium maculatum,) meadow-saffron, foxglove, etc., are occasionally eaten by cows, and prove fatal.
The sense of taste varies greatly in different animals; in granivorous birds, in reptiles and fishes generally, we cannot suppose that the impressions made on the gustatory nerves are at all delicate; they swallow their food entire at a single gulp, and their tongue is covered with a thick or a horny cuticle. Among birds, the carnivorous tribes, the parrots, and the swans, and true ducks, possess the sense of taste in considerable perfection. Among reptiles, tortoises and vegetable-feeding lizards, as the iguana, are, as it would seem, superior to the others; and among fishes, it is probable that those which feed on marine or aquatic vegetables, are endowed with a higher degree of taste than those which prey upon other fishes, which they engulph at once. It cannot be denied that many insects, as bees, wasps, butterflies, the house-fly, and various others, enjoy a keen sense of taste, and relish the sweets which prove so attractive to them.
Among the mollusca, some, at least, are endowed with the sense of taste in no low degree; the snail and the slug are examples in point, as the gardener can readily testify.
What information do we gain by the sense of taste? The eye and the ear conduce to our mental improvement, to our store of knowledge, to our appreciation of the sublime and beautiful. Eloquence, music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, scenery—the glory of the sun, and the moon, and the stars—these appeal to our mind through the organs of sight and hearing; but the sense of taste administers rather to our animal than to our intellectual being, and, doubtless, the pleasures of taste contribute greatly to the enjoyments of our existence. Taste, then, belongs to us less as spiritual, intellectual, immortal beings, than as corporeal, mortal beings; nevertheless, it is part of our nature, implanted in us by an all-wise God, in order that we should relish the provisions for sustaining life, which he has so bountifully provided. To pretend that we are indifferent to the pleasure or the disgust resulting from taste is an untruth—nay, it is to say that God's gifts to us are not worth our consideration. Our Lord and Saviour was one of a party at a marriage feast, and when the wine was exhausted, he turned water into wine, which was superior to that previously passed round. "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory."[19] But while, with a healthy appetite we relish our food, giving thanks to God for his bounty, let us not be epicures or gluttons; let our moderation be seen; let us use, not abuse, the gifts of our heavenly Father.
[19] John ii. 11.
4. Smell.—On a fine, filmy membrane, which lines the labyrinth of the nasal cavities, are distributed the delicate ramifications of the olfactory nerves, or the nerves of smell. These nerves are constructed for transmitting to the mind impressions arising from the floating exhalations of odoriferous substances. It is through these nasal cavities, principally, that man and quadrupeds breathe; hence the respiration of the air informs us of our proximity to objects disgusting and noxious, or, on the contrary, attractive from their fragrance. Surely we need not adduce instances in proof of our position. The scent of putrescent animal or vegetable matters is in itself a warning to us to retire from the locality of mortific corruption, and escape from the region of disease. How loathsome to our sense are these putrescent effluvia! They nauseate us even to sickness—nay, sometimes almost to fainting; indeed, the writer has seen a violent fit of epilepsy produced by the overpowering and horribly disgusting odour of the matter contained in the scent pouch of a small quadruped, the grison, (Galictis vittata,) which he was dissecting, the sufferer being a practical zoologist, accustomed to the dissecting-room.
But when the voice of the nightingale is heard, and the air is loaded with the perfume of the hawthorn blossom, and of thousands of spring flowers, are we not invited, as it were by a secret call, to walk abroad through woodlands and meadows, contemplating the works of God? We are thus lured to beneficial exercise—to inhale
"The breezy fragrance of the morn"—