The organs of taste are placed at the commencement of the apparatus of nutrition, and their assigned work is to test the quality of the food received, thereby giving warning lest any noxious substance be introduced into the stomach. Man, indeed, employs the sense of taste far less decidedly in this manner than do most other animals; he is omnivorous; in the north he relishes train-oil and blubber, the blood of seals, and animal food half raw, while, in tropical regions, he feeds upon boiled rice or other grain, seasoned with a little spice, and accounts it a luxury. In both cases, the taste is in consonance with the requirements of the system, placed under opposite circumstances. Man, however, acquires by habit an artificial taste, and comes at last to relish things which he at first disliked, and in many instances these things are more or less injurious. Nor is this artificial taste confined only to man--we have seen it in domestic animals--cats, by nature exclusively carnivorous, will eat boiled cabbage with relish; the dog will acquire a partiality for bread and biscuit. On the contrary, some of our herbivorous animals may be taught to like animal food. For example, in some parts of Arabia, flesh, raw as well as cooked, is occasionally given to the horses, with fragments of their owner's meals. An inhabitant of Hamah assured Burckhardt, that he had often given his horses roasted meat before the commencement of a fatiguing journey, that they might be the better able to endure it; this same person, as we learn from the learned traveller, fearing lest the governor should take from him his favourite horse, fed it for a fortnight exclusively upon roasted pork, which so excited its spirit and mettle, that it became absolutely unmanageable, and no longer an object of desire to the governor.