Animal parasites and messmates / by P.J. van Beneden.

  • Beneden, P. J. van (Pierre Joseph), 1809-1894.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Animal parasites and messmates / by P.J. van Beneden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Therefore, the Hand which has brought the world out of chaos, has varied the nature of this food; it has proportioned this universal nourishment to the neces- sities and the peculiar organization of the various species which have to derive from it the power of motion and the continuance of their lives. The study whose aim is to make us acquainted wdth the kind of food adapted to each animal constitutes an interesting branch of Natural History. The bill of fare of every animal is written beforehand in indelible cha- racters on each specific type; and these characters are less difficult for the naturalist to decipher than are palimpsests for the archaeologist. Under the form of bones or scales, of feathers or shells, they show themselves in the digestive organs. It is by paying, not domiciliary, but stomachic visits, that we must be initiated into the details of this domestic economy. The bill of fare of fossil animals, though written in characters less distinct and complete, can still be very frequently read in the substance of’their coprolites. We do not despair even to find some day the fishes and the crustaceans which were chased by the plesiosam-s and the ichthyosaurs, and to discover some parasitic worms which had entered with them into the convolutions of the intestines of the saurians. Naturalists have not always studied with sufficient care the correspondence which exists between the animal and its food, although it supplies the student with infer- matiou of a very valuable kind. In fact, every organized body, -Wliether conferva or moss, ineect or mammal becomes the prey of some animal; every organic sub- stance, sap or blood, horn or feather, flesh or bone