It has been well shown by Dr. J. Oldfield, in the _New Century Review_, October 1898, that "omnivorism" in the hoggish sense, is _not_ characteristic of progressive mankind. "The higher we go in the scale of life, the more we find _selection_ taking the place of omnivorism. The more complex the organism, the greater its selective capacity. 'Selection,' then, rather than 'omnivorism,' should be the watch-cry of the human race evolving upward." But let us return to our monkeys. SCIENTIST: You just now quoted the gorilla as a frugivorous animal, but, on further consideration, I cannot admit him to be so. He is omnivorous—like man. I have Sir Richard Owen's authority for it. VEGETARIAN: What! Does the ape rush upon the antelopes, and rend them with those canine teeth of his? How horrible! SCIENTIST: Not exactly that; but it was stated by Sir Henry Thompson that "Sally," the large chimpanzee once so popular in the Zoological Gardens, was not infrequently supplied with animal food. VEGETARIAN: Well, and how does that prove that the chimpanzee is not naturally frugivorous? I should imagine that any one of us, if placed in a cage, and stared at all the year round by a throng of gaping visitors, might be liable to aberrations. Even a vegetarian might do the same. SCIENTIST: But in their wild state also the baboons are known to prey on lizards, young birds, eggs, etc., when they can get them. Perhaps you were not aware of this when you called the apes frugivorous? VEGETARIAN: I was quite aware of it, and in view of the exceedingly small importance of these casual pilferings as compared with their staple diet, I maintain that they _are_, for all practical purposes, frugivorous. Indeed, so far from this mischievous penchant of the apes being an argument against vegetarianism, it is most suggestive as explaining how the early savages may have passed, almost by accident at first, from a frugivorous to a mixed diet. SCIENTIST: Well, at any rate, it indicates that apes have a tendency to become omnivorous. VEGETARIAN: Yes, if you like to express it so; and it is still more evident that men have that tendency. But the question is whether the tendency is rightly interpreted as giving a sanction to _flesh-eating_. For flesh-eating, as we use the term, means the breeding, destroying, and devouring of highly-organised mammals, and is a very different thing from the egg and lizard hunting in which the monkeys sometimes indulge. If you would confine your flesh-eating to a few insects and nestlings, you would have a better right to quote the example of the apes.