[Verse: "I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top."--PSALM CII.] CHAPTER LV. 1091. _Why do quadrupeds that are vegetable eaters feed so continually?_ Because their food contains but a _small proportion of nutrition_, so that it is necessary to digest a _large quantity_ to obtain sufficient nourishment. 1092. _Why do flesh eating animals satisfy themselves with a rapid meal?_ Because the food which they eat is _rich in nutritious matter_, and more readily digestible than vegetable food; it does not therefore, require the same amount of _grinding with the teeth_. [Illustration: Fig. 73.--PELICAN WITH DILATED POUCH.] 1093. _Why has the pelican a large pouch under its bill?_ Because it subsists upon fish, generally of the smaller kind, and uses its pouch _as a net_ for catching them; the pouch also serves as a _paunch,_ in which the fish are stored, until the bird ceases from the exertion of fishing, and takes its meal at leisure. [Verse: "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good."--GENESIS I.] In their wild state they hover and wheel over the surface of the water, watching the shoals of fish beneath, and suddenly sweeping down, bury themselves in the foaming waves; rising immediately from the water by their own buoyancy, up they soar, the pouch laden with the fish scooped up during their momentary submersion. The number of fish the pouch of this species will contain may be easily imagined when we state that it is so dilatable as to be capable of containing two gallons of water; yet the bird has the power of contracting this membranous expansion, by wrinkling it up under the lower mandible, until it is scarcely to be seen. In shallow inlets, which the pelicans often frequent, it nets its prey with great adroitness. The pelican chooses remote and solitary islands, isolated rocks in the sea, the borders of lakes and rivers, as its breeding place. The nest, placed on the ground, is made of coarse grasses, and the eggs, which are white, are two or three in number. While the female is incubating, the male brings fish to her in his pouch, and the young, when hatched, are assiduously attended by the parents, who feed them by pressing the pouch against the breast, so as to transfer the fish from the former into the throats of the young. This action has doubtless given origin to the old fable of the pelican feeding its young with blood drawn from its own breast.--_Knight's Animal Kingdom._ 1094. _Why do the smaller animals breed more abundantly than the larger ones?_