and can use the fangs to tear out a large piece
of meat from the body of his prey.

When the tiger or the lion gets a piece of meat into his mouth, he uses
the upper fangs to pierce the meat: that is, the meat lies on the
ordinary teeth on the under jaw, and the two fangs of the upper jaw come
down on the meat and cut it into two or three pieces. The tiger or the
lion could chew the meat a little more, with the help of his ordinary
teeth, but he does not need to. Every animal of the Cat Tribe has a
strong digestion; so the tiger or the lion merely cuts up the meat a few
times with his fangs and then swallows it.

_The Feline's Tongue is Rough_

A feline's fangs, however, are too big to tear off _small_ pieces of
meat from a bone. So it uses its _tongue_ to scrape off the small pieces
of meat. That is the reason why a feline's tongue is very rough. So
again you see, as I told you in Book I, that every animal has the gift
it needs. If the feline did not have a rough tongue, it could not eat
the small pieces of meat on a bone; and so a portion of its food would
be wasted. No inhabitant of the jungle wastes food. It is only _we_ who
waste food.

_The Feline's Claws are Retractile_

The claws of every feline are _retractile_. That is, the claws can be
_drawn in_, or sheathed, whenever the animal desires; also, the claws
can be thrust out, whenever the animal desires to do that.

Why is it necessary for a feline to be able to do both--to draw in its
claws, and to thrust them out?

Because when the animal needs food, it must thrust out the claws to
seize it. But in just running about in the jungle, it does not need to
use its claws; so it draws them in. In fact, if it did not draw in its
claws then, the claws would soon be worn out by rubbing against the
ground. And even if the claws were growing all the time, they would be
also wearing off all the time. So to keep the claws sharp for use only
when the animal wants to seize something, it keeps the claws drawn in at
other times.

Here I ought to tell you that a dog's claws are quite different from the
claws of a feline, even from those of an ordinary cat. The cat's claws
are of course retractile, as I have just described to you. But a dog's
claws are _rigid_; that is, they are stiff and thrust out all the time.
Why? Because the dog does not use its claws. It seizes its food with its
mouth, not with its claws. It even defends itself with its mouth, that
is, with it