NATURAL HISTORY. 277 



I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my 

 sword like a ?reat pj n> ere tQOU an d j part." S 



The expressions in the Book of Job, derogatory to tha character of the ostrich, 

 ure to be understood as spoken by an individual, not as coming from the lips of 

 inspired wisdom. God has looked upon the creation of his hands and pronounced 

 it "very good." Job (in chap, xxxix.) s-poke according to his limited knowledge 

 of the habits of birds, and might pardonably err.* 



In the dry desert, where the hen ostrich deposits her eggs, scarcely any dew is 

 formed during the night ; and she can without injury to them afford to be absent 

 from the nest during the whole twenty-four hours, if such an absence should be 

 necessary. For the radiation of heat from the sand during the night would be 

 quite sufficient to keep up a stimulus to vitality in the eggs until the direct sun of 

 another day came upom them. 



883. Why does the foot of the ostrich resemble that of 

 a camel ? 



Because it inhabits the same regions, and is subject to the same 

 set of circumstances ; with this difference, that as its pace is 

 more swift, the foot of the ostrich is therefore proportionally 

 hard and callous. 



884. The resemblance between the ostrich and camel has always been a subject of 

 remark. Ey the ancient authors it was called the camel-bird. Aristotle asserts it 

 to be partly bird and partly quadruped ; and Pliny does the same. Its powers of 

 digestion assimilate it to the ruminating animals; it does, in fact, occupy the 

 place among birds which the camel, "the ship of the desert," does among 

 mammalia. 



885. Why has the ostrich small and light wings ? 



It is a rule in nature that whenever one species of action is 

 required in a very high degree the organization of an animal is 

 concentrated upon that. Flight would have been of comparatively 

 little, use to a -vegetable feeding bird, where its height, standing on 

 fciot, is quite sufficient to reach the top of the tallest shrub 

 on its pastures. 



886. Wings sufficient to bear up so weighty a bird as the ostrich hi swift motion 

 through the air would have demanded a waste of muscular exertion, for the 

 supply of which sufficient food could not have been found in the region 

 inhabited by it. 



* See "The Biblica. Reason Why" foi many interesting explanations of 

 Scripture texts. 



