blog
Out of context: Reply #18036
- Started
- Last post
- 76,740 Responses
- ********0
William Buckland set the stage for his son's lifelong appreciation of taste as a diagnostic character in natural history. Guests at the Buckland house might be, and were, served anything from mice to ostrich, along the way including hedgehog, puppy, crocodile and snails. According to Burgess, Richard Owen spent a queasy night after a dinner of roast ostrich at the Bucklands', but John Ruskin regretted having missed the toasted mice. William Buckland himself does not appear to have hesitated in the use of the sense of taste in analyzing the natural world. Visiting a cathedral at which spots of saints' blood were said to be always fresh on the floor, never evaporating or vanishing, Dr. Buckland, with the use of his tongue, determined that the "blood" was in fact bats' urine. He mused in print as to whether the common mole or the blue-bottle fly tasted worse.
- according to ruskin, the more complex the organism, the greater the putridity of decay********
- but fish are pretty simple in terms of evolution, yet they sure stink up the place...GreedoLives
- according to ruskin, the more complex the organism, the greater the putridity of decay