Elephants' Tongues

1895

"Only a few of the many people who have thrown peanuts into the elephants' mouths," said Head Keeper Manley of the zoological gardens to a Philadelphia Record man, "have noticed that the tongue is hung at both ends. A tongue hung in the middle is a human complaint, but elephants have a monopoly on those hung at both ends. The trunk suffices to put the food just where it ought to be, and the tongue simply keeps it moving from side to side over the grinders. When a peanut gets stuck on the elephant's tongue he raises it in the middle, like a moving caterpillar, and the shell cracks against the roof of the mouth, to then disappear down a capacious throat."


Didn't Want to Sneeze

A whimsical old Englishman who died over a century ago left a will in which he stated what he wished done at his funeral. His first request was that sixty of his friends be invited, accompanied by five of the best fiddlers to be found in the town. Second, he wished no tears to be shed, but, on the other hand, insisted that the sixty friends should be "merry for two hours," on penalty of being sent away. And, finally, that "no snuff be brought upon the premises, lest I have a fit of sneezing." — Harper's Young People.


A singed cat dreads the cold.