The Choice between Adequate and Inadequate Diets, as Made by Rats.*

The success with which animals living in their natural environment nourish themselves must depend upon the exercise of choices in which instinct and appetite play a significant part. When such individuals are transferred to conditions of domestication their freedom of choice, particularly in t’he case of captive or farm animals, is restricted. Their diet now becomes a problem for the husbandman who follows in part his observations on the actual feeding habits of the species and in part the dictates of special trials or experimental observations on the species in question. Many infants and children are likewise dependent upon a dietary regimen controlled or modified independently of their natural preferences. Man generally chooses his own food; but the selection is limited by a number of circumstantial factors which have led to the formation of so called dietetichabits. In discussing the origin of modern so called feeding standards, Armsby’ says: