Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/268

 262 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLT

same term may be applied to the person who can not eat thia or that wholesome article of diet. The cosmopolitan has been obliged to eat strange foods when traveling in foreign lands. By so doing he learns to like foods which he thought unpalatable when first introduced.

Hunger of su£Scient intensity gives relish to any wholesome food^ however strange. Explorers in the Polar regions often have been obliged to eat the flesh of the seal, walrus and whale to save their lives. We have been told that the flesh of the Australian dugong tastes like beef and is easily digested; that when salted it has the flavor of excellent bacon.

Why trouble about these strange sea monsters now? We still have plenty of grazing land I If one may generalize from past records, the sea mammals will be extinct when the grazing lands of the earth are all under cultivation. It is reported that in 1690 an inhabitant of the island of Nantucket, which has very poor soil, looking at the whales playing in the ocean said: ''There is a green pasture where our chil- dren's grandchildren will go for bread.'' He considered the ocean from a commercial point of view. We now observe as we look at the water- scape of the world: ''There is a green pasture where our children's grandchildren, far removed, will go for meat."

To the credit of humanity it can now be stated that the thinking, ethical nations are setting aside sanctuaries and preserves for birds, other animals, and plants that are liable to become extinct. One nati(m alone, however far-seeing and altruistic, can not conserve the marine mammals. This is an international concern and it might well be brought before the next international conference at The Hague.

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