Note 525 — Chapter XXIV · PERIODICAL PUBLIC FESTIVALS, ETC.

Many persons who have not applied themselves to the study of natural history are ignorant of the remarkable fact that the camel has in itself a provision against hunger, besides its well-known supply against thirst. When deprived of its usual food for several successive days, it feeds upon the fat of its own hump, which, under these circumstances, gradually disappears before the limbs are perceptibly reduced. This explanation of the use of an excrescence, which would otherwise seem a mere inconvenient incumbrance, shows how wonderfully the camel is adapted to the peculiar circumstances in which Providence has placed it, and perhaps may be applied with equal propriety to the hump of the bull and cow, and some other animals, in hot and arid climates.