THE OSTRICH. 03 



holds up its head it can reach eleven feet in height. Tho 

 head is very small in comparison with the body, bding 

 hardly bigger than one of the toes ; it is covered, as well as 

 the neck, with a certain down, or thin-set hairs, instead of 

 feathers. The sides and thighs are entirely bare and flesh- 

 coloured. The lower part of the neck, where the feathers 

 begin, is white. The wings are short and of no use in 

 flying, but when the bird runs, which it does with a strange 

 jumping kind of motion, it raises its short wings, and holds 

 them quivering over its back, where they seem to serve as 

 a kind of sail to gather the wind and carry the bird on- 

 wards. The feathers of the back, in the cock, are coal- 

 black; in the hen only dusky, and so soft that they resemble 

 a kind of wool. The tail is thick, bushy, and round ; in 

 the cock whitish, in the hen dusky with white tops. These 

 are the feathers so generally in requisition, to decorate the 

 head-dress of ladies and the helmets of warriors. 



The Ostrich swallows anything that presents itself, lea- 

 ther, glass, iron, bread, hair, &c. ; and the power of digestion 

 in the stomach is so strong that even iron is very much 

 afifected by it. An Ostrich in the Zoological Grardens in the 

 Regent's Park, was, however, killed by swallowing a lad/f 

 parasoL 



O'er the wild waste the stupid Ostrich strays, 

 In devious search to pick her scanty meal. 

 Whose fierce digestion gnaws the tempered steeL 



Mioklb's LvtlASl 



