II STRUTHIONIDAE 



27 



I. STRUTHIONES. 



Fam. Struthionidae. These birds are distinguished from all 

 others by having only two toes the third and fourth the ter- 

 minal phalanges of which are shortened and bear thick stunted 

 claws, that of the outer toe l^eing commonly absent. The whole foot, 

 including the long scutellated metatarsus, is exceptionally stout, 

 and the toes are padded beneath. The beak is short, broad, and 

 depressed, with deeply split gape ; the head is small, with large 

 eyes; the neck very long; the wdng- and drooping tail-feathers 

 the plumes of commerce are large and soft, with broad equal 

 vanes. The furcula and syringeal muscles are wanting, nor is 

 there any aftershaft. 



Struthio camelus, the Ostrich or " Camel-bird " of North Africa, 

 now extends from Barbary to Arabia, and even to Mesopotamia, 

 though no longer found, as of old, in Egypt or Central Asia, its 

 former occurrence in Baluchistan being somewhat open to question. 

 It is black wdth white wings and tail, having a iiesh-coloured neck 

 covered with brownish down, and partially bare tibiae of the same 

 hue. The female and young male are almost entirely cinereous, 

 while the chicks are clothed with bristly yellowish-wdiite down 

 with blackish stripes. The eggs of the typical northern bird liave 

 a surface like ivory, while those from Southern Africa are marked 

 with close-set pits, whence some authorities recognise a different 

 species (*S'. australis) in the latter region, distinguishable, moreover, 

 1 )y the bluish colour of the naked parts. Examples from Somali- 

 land and the adjoining districts of East Africa to Lake Tanganyika 

 are separated as >S'. molyhdoi^hanes, on account of the leaden colour 

 of the unfeathered portions, coupled with a red patch on the front 

 of the metatarsus. The eggs are smoother than in the southern 

 species, but similarly pitted. The fossil forms >S'. asiaticus from 

 the Pliocene of the Siwalik Hills of India, and S. karatheodori 

 from the Upper Miocene of Samos complete the family, while >S'. 

 {Struthiolithus) chersonensis has been founded on a petrified egg 

 from the government of Cherson in South Eussia. 



The Ostrich stands about eight feet high, being the largest ot 

 existing birds ; it frequents sandy wastes and dry arid localities, 

 such as are found in the Saliara and the plains and valleys of 

 Southern Africa, while districts studded with low bushes are net 

 unfrequently tenanted. I'hough the fable of the head being hidden 



