Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1894-01-25
LIVING LUNCH BASKETS.

Of course it is not at all surprising
that you should carry your lunch with
you when you are going to be away from
home all day, but think of an animal
doing such thing
There is the camel, for instance.
Everybody knows that it carries its
drinking water with it, but it does more !;
it carries its lunch too. That hump on
the camePs back is not curvature of
the spine, as it may seem, but mass of
fatty material. That hump, in fact, is
the camels lunch basket.
When well-fed, healthy camel starts
out on a journey across the desert, its
water pouch is full, and its hump is big.
When water fails, the camel has only to
draw on its reservoir, and when food is
wanting, the hump is called upon.
Not that the camel helps itself to bites
of its hump. That would be decidedly
uncomfortable way of getting a meal,
and very likely the camel would rather
go hungry than do that In some way
the hump is gradually absorbed, and for
a long time after the camel has been
unable to find anything to eat it can
get along very comfortably on what its
hump supplies it with. BY and by, of
course, the hump is used up. and then
the camel will starve as quickly as any
other animal
A great deal more like genuine lunch
basket is the bag the pelican carries its
food in. The pelican is about as un-
calmly and odd a bird as can be found,
and yet is very interesting one. Ithas
great webbed feet, short legs, big body,
huge wings and an enormous head.
Its head is mostly bill, and on the
under part of the bill is flabby bag
made of tough skin. That bag can
stretch and stretch until it can hold an
incredible quantity of fish, for it is in
that bag that the pelican puts the fish it
catches for its food When the bag is
full, the pelican rises heavily from the
sea, and with broad sweeps of its great
wings flaps slowly to the shore, where
it alights and prepares to enjoy the meal
it has earned. One by one the still liv-
ing fish are tossed into the air and come
down head first into the wide opened
mouth of the hungry bird.
Then there are some of the South
American monkeys which have curious
little lunch baskets in their cheeks.
Everybody must have seen monkeys
stufing and stutfing food into their
mouths until their cheeks were bulged
quite out of shape.
1t looks as if the greedy little fellows
were merely examining their mouths full.
The truth is, many of the monkeys have
queer little pockets in their cheeks into
which they can stow enough food for
meal. Nor do the full cheeks interfere
at all with the chewing of the monkeys
any more than if the pockets were out
side instead of inside of the mouth.
But there is little animal called the
pouched rat which has an odder way
than this OF carrying its food. On each
side OF its face is pouch which looks
very much like kid glove finger drawn
in at one end. These pouches stick
straight out from the face and can be
made to hold large supply of food.
The COW and deer and sheep and other
similar animals have still another way of
laying in a supply of food They bite
off grass and leaves and swallow them
without chewing at all The food goes
into special stomach, there to stay
until it is wanted. When the animal
is ready for it, a ball of tho food is made
up in that first stomach and sent up in
the animals mouth That ball is Just .
mouthful, and the animal can chew it
comfortably. After it is chewed and
swallowed it goes into the proper
stomach and is digested. Eating in that
way is called Illuminating. II Harpesa1
Young People.