DISEASES. 137 



them anything about how to farm. The introduction 

 and rapid development of new industries, and the partial 

 failure of old ones, has taught them the great facts : that 

 a man cannot go on in the same groove as his father; 

 that with each successive generation we must advance 

 to something higher and more complex, unless we are 

 prepared, both as individuals and as a nation, to sink in 

 the o^reat struo-ale of the world. 



The known diseases of Ostriches can be conveniently 

 divided into simple and complex : the simple being 

 those where the cause and effect are easily perceived 

 and directly connected, such as the eating a poisonous 

 plant, or stop sickness from hard and indigestible food ; 

 the swallowing of some sharp implement, or abscess of 

 some organ, resulting from a wound ; hoven or keil- 

 sickness, resulting from eating a great quantity of very 

 young grass ; overgorging with some tempting food to 

 such an extent that the action of the stomach is stopped; 

 inflammation of the lungs from a cold ; diseases of 

 the eye caused by a blow, &c. The complex are 

 those where the cause is obscure, and where so many 

 of the vital organs are affected as to make it very 

 doubtful as to which was the original seat of the 

 disease — as in *' yellow liver" in chicks, of which we 

 have already treated ; or the effects of parasites, either 

 external or internal, where they act, not as does the 



