666 OUSEL 
Struthionidx, has been often used in a more general sense by system- 
atists, even to signify the whole of the Ravir#! The most 
obvious distinctive character presented by the Ostrich is the pres- 
ence of two toes only, the third and fourth, on each foot,—a 
character absolutely peculiar to the genus Struthio.? 
The great mercantile value of Ostrich-feathers, and the in- 
creasing difficulty, due to the causes already mentioned, of pro- 
curing them from wild birds, has led to the formation in the Cape 
Colony and elsewhere of numerous “ Ostrich-farms,” on which these 
birds are kept in confinement, and at regular times deprived of 
their plumes. In favourable localities and with judicious manage- 
ment these establishments are understood to yield very considerable 
profit; while, as the ancient taste for wearing Ostrich-feathers 
shews no sign of falling off, but seems rather to be growing, it is 
probable that the practice will yet be largely extended.® 
OUSEL or OUZEL, Anglo-Saxon Osle, equivalent of the German 
Amsel (a form of the word found in several old English books, and 
perhaps yet surviving in some parts of the country), apparently the 
ancient name for what is now more commonly known as the BLACK- 
BIRD, the Turdus merula of ornithologists, but at the present day 
not often applied to that species, though, as will immediately be 
seen, used in a compound form for two others. The adult male of 
this beautiful and well-known bird scarcely needs any other descrip- 
tion than that of the poet :— 
“The Ousel-cock, so black of hue, 
With orange-tawny bill.” 
—Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iii. se. 1. 
But the female is of an uniform umber-brown above, has the chin, 
throat and upper part of the breast orange-brown, with a few dark 
streaks, and the rest of the plumage beneath of a hair-brown. The 
1 At one time it was not uncommon to include the BusTarps among the 
Struthionide ! 
2 Remains of a true Ostrich have been recognized from the Sivalik formation 
in India, and the petrified egg of an apparently allied form, Struthiolithus, has 
been found in the south of Russia (see Fosstt Brrps, p. 285). 
3 Among the more important treatises on this bird may be mentioned :—E. 
D’Alton, Die Skelete der Straussartigen Vogel abgebildet wnd beschrieben, folio, 
Bonn: 1827; P. L. Sclater, ‘‘On tle Struthious Birds living in the Zoological 
Society's Menagerie,” Trans. Zool. Soc. iv. p. 353, containing the finest representa- 
tion (pl. 67), by Mr. Wolf, ever published of the male Struthio camelus ; 
Prof. Mivart, ‘‘On the Axial Skeleton of the Ostrich,” op. cit. viii. p. 385; Prof. 
Haughton, ‘‘On the Muscular Mechanism of the Leg of the Ostrich, dan. Nat. 
Hist. ser. 3, xv. pp. 262-272—a subject more fully treated by M. Alix in his 
Essai sur Uappareil locomoteur des Oiseaux (Paris: 1874); and Prof. Macalister, 
‘On the Anatomy of the Ostrich,” Proc. R&. Irish Acad. ix. pp. 1-24. 
