90 THE OSTRICH. 



convey letters or small packets from one place to another 

 The rapidity of their flight is very wonderful. Lefthgo^ 

 ft^sttres us that one of them will carry a letter from Babylon 

 to Aleppo (which, to a man, is usually thirty days' journey) 

 in f6rty-eight hours. To measure their speed with some 

 degree of exactness, a gentleman many years ago, on a 

 trifling wager, sent a Carrier Pigeon from London, by the 

 coach, to a friend at Bury St. Edmond-^s ; and along with it 

 a Dote, desiring that the Pigeon, two days after its arriva* 

 there, might be thrown up precisely when the town clock 

 struck nine in the morning. This was accordingly done, 

 and the Pigeon arrived in London at half^ast eleven o'clock 

 of the same morning, having flown seventy-two miles in two 

 hours and a half. From the instant of its liberation, its 

 flight is directed through the clouds, at a great height, to 

 its home. By an instinct altogether inconceivable, it darts 

 onward, in a straight line, to the very spot whence it was 

 rjiken, but how it can direct its flight so exactly will pro- 

 bably for ever remain unknown to us. 



THE OSTRICH. {Struthio camelus,) 



We place the Ostrich at the head of the fifth order of 

 Dirds, the GraUatoreSy or Waders. The Ostrich is a native 



r.f Africa. It is one of the tallest of birds; as when il 



