ALIEN, from ...Menus, a foreigner, is a person born out of the kingdom, and therefore under the dominion of a foreign power. By the laws of this country, children born in a foreign kingdom, whose fathers are denizens, or natural born subjects at the time of the births of their children, are considered as natural born subjects of Great Britain, unless their fathers have been guilty of high treason or felony, or arc in the service of a foreign state at war with Great Britain. An alien is incapable, by the Scottish law, of acquiring or succeeding to heri tage, unless by an act of naturalization passed in parlia ment, or letters of denization issued by the king. All alien may acquire a right in moveables ; but he is in capable, even by an act of naturalization, of enjoying the privilege to vote for a member of parliament, or to sit in the house of commons. When the enormities of the French revolution compelled crowds of foreigners to seek for shelter in this hospitable island, new laws were enacted concerning aliens ; but as these were merely of a temporary nature, we shall only refer for an account of them to the acts themselves. See 33 Geo. III. cap. 4. ; 42 Geo. III. cap. 92. ; 43 Geo. III. cap. 155. ; and for preceding enactments, see 4 Geo. II. cap. 21. § I. ; 13 Geo. III. cap. 21. § 1. See also Bell's Dictionary of the Law of Scotland, vol. i. p. 23. (j)* are those substances which, being re ceived into the bodies of organized beings, promote the growth, support the strength, and renew the waste of their systems. They are, in other words, the materials from which the different orders of created beings derive their nourishment.
All organized beings whatever, animal as well as ve getable, may ultimately be resolved into a few simple elements, of which the principal are. carbon, Ii) drogen. oxygen, nitrogen, lime, sulphur, and phosphorus. Dif ferent combinations of these elements make up the whole of their material systems. And in the constantly revolving circle of (lesti octiun and reproduction, which marks the face of nature. are the elements which
arc unceasingly passing and repassing from one ordet of beings to another ; from vegetable= to animals, from one animal to another, and from these to the soil and to the atmosphere, again to be assimilated to the systems of segetable and animal bodies.
Thus, all the different alimentary matters, capable of being assimilated by the bodies of animals, are compos ed of these elements variously combined.
The gtneral law, however, with regard to the nutri tion of animals, is, that they must derive their food from substances previously organized, or from the immediate products of these, not totally changed, or resolved into their simple elements by a spontaneous or artificial de composition.
It is very different with the vegetable tribe ; for al though the elements of the food of plants be ultimately the same with those which arc assimilated by animals, their aliment must be supplied in a state of complete disorganization.
From the air, the water, and the soil to which they are attached, vegetables may be said to draw the materials of their nourishment, in a raw and unmanufactured state, which they elaborate, combine, and organize into various products now fitted to supply aliment to the in dividuals of the animal kingdom. The food of plants will, however, more properly come under our consider ation when treating of vegetable physiology. At pre sent, our observations, will be confined chiefly to the aliments of man.
Some animals subsist exclusively on vegetable ali ments, others are wholly carnivorous, and some derive their food indifferently from animal and vegetable mat ters. To most animals, however, nature has assigned but a limited range of aliment, when compared to the extensive choice allotted to man. The vegetable and animal kingdom, fruits, grains, roots, and herbs, flesh, fish, and fowl, all contribute to his sustenance.