151 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Brevipennate Birds. — Little more than 200 years 

 ago there were on the islands of Mauritius, Bourbon, 

 and Rodriguez, sundry brevipennate birds, the 

 Dodo, Solitaire, &c., in great abundance, and, till 

 recently, but a head, a couple of feet or so, and a 

 few bones, with some paintings, were all that 

 remained to tell us of a very interesting group of 

 brevipennate birds. Much interesting matter re- 

 specting these will be found in a work entitled 

 "The Dodo and its Kindred." The living speci- 

 men of the Dodo exhibited in London in 1639 

 passed into the hands of Tradescaut, and when his 

 museum was presented to the University of Oxford 

 by Ashmole, it contained a perfect stuffed dodo. 

 On January 8th, 1755, by an order of the Vice- 

 Chancellor and his co-trustees, it was ordered to be 

 burnt, the head and foot alone escaping destruction. 

 Excavations made in 1S65 in the Mauritius by 

 M. de Bissy, for the purpose of utilizing the soil of 

 a marsh for manure, led to the discovery of various 

 bones, including those of the Deer and Tortoise. 

 Mr. Clark, who had long had an opinicn respecting 

 the possibility of finding bones of the Dodo, told 

 M. de Bissy his views. This led to a systematic 

 exploration, and the discovery of mauy bones of 

 that bird, and now, in the British Museum, may be 

 seen an almost perfect skeleton. 



African Ostriches. — Leaving the region of the 

 comparatively unknown, we come to well-known 

 examples of wingless or brevipennate birds, all 

 belonging to the true Cttrsores ; these are the 

 Ostriches, the Emeu, and the Cassowaries. The 

 best known species is the Ostrich, Strut hio 

 Camelus, an inhabitant of the African 

 continent. This bird, which has been cele- 

 brated since the most remote antiquity, and a 

 dish of whose brains was an epicurean dish in Old 

 Rome, measures from six to eight feet in height ; 

 its feet consist of only two toes ; the head and neck 

 are nearly naked, the general plumage very lax, the 

 quill feathers of the wings and tail remarkable for 

 the length of their barbs, which, though furnished 

 with barbules, are completely separate from each 

 other, and form the well-known ostrich feathers of 

 commerce. The ostriches live together in large 

 flocks, feeding upon grass, grain, wild melons, &c, 

 and, like the gallinaceous birds, which they resem- 

 ble in their food, have an enormous crop and a 

 strong gizzard. In a state of nature it picks' up and 

 swallows small pebbles ; but in confinement it has 

 swallowed brickbats, knives, old shoes, scraps of 

 wood, tenpenny nails, bits of iron, and feathers ; 

 one went to the length of swallowing in succession 

 the whole of a brood of young ducks ; whether 

 impelled by normal hunger, a morbid appetite, or 

 sheer mischief is an open question. Another tried 

 to swallow its blanket. The voracity of the Ostrich 

 formerly gave rise to the belief that it fed on iron. 

 The African ostrich is polygamous and gregarious. 



The female scratches a hole in the sand, in which 

 she lays ten or twelve eggs in an upright position. 

 The male and female both sit upon the eggs during 

 the night, and this sitting, supplemented by the 

 heat of the sun, hatches those in the middle of the 

 nest, the outer ones, when the centre eggs are hard 

 and the yonng birds nearly hatched, being quite fit 

 for food ; the eggs weigh upon an average 3 lb., and 

 are regarded as great delicacies. Though equal in 

 weight to twenty-four lien's eggs, one is not thought 

 enough for a meal, aud in one instance two men 

 finished five eggs in the course of an afternoon. The 

 approved method of cooking is to place the egg 

 upright on the fire, break a hole in the top, through 

 which a forked stick is forced. This is made to 

 rotate by rubbing with the hands, and so beats up 

 the contents while cooking. 



American Ostriches. — The American ostriches 

 contain two species, Rhea Americana and R. Dar- 

 winii, and are scarcely more than half the size of 

 the African species, from which they also differ in 

 having the head and neck covered with feathers, 

 and the feet furnished with three toes. The 

 feathers of the wing and tail, though elongated, 

 p jssess none of the beauty of the African ostrich, 

 and are only employed in the manufacture of light 

 dusting-brooms. They are very abundant in the 

 large plains of America. The food consists maiuly 

 of grasses, roots, and other~vegetable substances, 

 but they will occasionally eat animal food, being 

 known to come down to the mud-banks of the 

 livers for the purpose of eating the little fish that 

 have been stranded in the shallows. Darwiu, who 

 had freqnent opportunities of observing these birds, 

 has given an excellent account of their habits. He 

 says-.— "They take the water readily, and swim 

 across broad and rapid rivers, and even from island 

 to island in the bays. They swim slowly, with 

 the greater part of the body immersed, and the neck 

 extended a little forwards. On two occasions I 

 saw some cstriches swimming across the Santa 

 Cruz river, where it was 400 yards wide and the 

 stream rapid." It is polygamous; the male bird 

 prepares the nest, collects the eggs, which are fre- 

 quently laid by the females at random on the 

 ground, and performs all the duties of incubation. 

 Darwiu says four or five females have been known 

 to lay in the same nest, and the male, when sitting, 

 lies so close that he himself nearly rode over one. 

 At this time they are very fierce, and have been 

 known to attack a man on horseback, trying to 

 kick and leap on him. 



The Australian Emeu. — The Emeu of Australia, 

 Dromaius Nova Rollandia>, is nearly as large as the 

 African ostrich, measuring from 5 feet to 7 feet in 

 height. It has three toes on each foot, and these 

 are furnished with nearly equal claws. The head 

 and neck are covered with feathers, the throat being 

 bare ; the plumage of the body, closely resembling 



