THE OSTRICH. 149 



be nourished and brought up, and especially how those of fuller 

 growth, and much better qualified to look out for themselves are 

 able to subsist. 



The attachment of this bird to the barren solitudes of the Sahara, 

 is frequently alluded to in the Holy Scriptures ; particularly in the 

 prophecies of Isaiah, where the word IONEH, unfortunately transla- 

 ted owl in the English Bible, ought to be rendered ostrich. In the 

 splendid palaces of Babylon, so long the scenes of joy and revelry, 

 the prophet foretold, that the shy and timorous ostrich should fix 

 her abode ; than which a greater and more affecting contrast can 

 scarcely be presented to the mind. 



When the ostrich is provoked, she sometimes makes a fierce, 

 angry, and hissing noise, with her throat inflated, and her mouth 

 open : when she meets with a timorous adversary that opposes but 

 a faint resistance to her assault, she chuckles or cackles like a hen, 

 seeming to rejoice in the prospect of an easy conquest. But in the 

 silent hours of night, she assumes a quite different tone, and makes 

 a very doleful and hideous noise, which sometimes resembles the 

 roaring of a lion ; and at other times, that of the bull and the ox. 

 She frequently groans, as if she were in the greatest agonies ; an 

 action to which the prophet beautifully alludes : * I will make a 

 mourning like the ostrich' Micah, i. 8. The Hebrew name of the 

 bird is derived from a verb which signifies to exclaim with a loud 

 voice, and may therefore be attributed with sufficient propriety to 

 the ostrich, whose voice is loud and sonorous ; especially, as the 

 word does not seem to denote any certain determined mode of 

 voice or sound peculiar to any one particular species of animals, but 

 one that may be applicable to them all. Dr. Brown says, the cry of 

 the ostrich resembles the voice of a hoarse child, and is even more 

 dismal. It cannot, then, but appear mournful, and even terrible, to 

 those travellers who plunge with no little anxiety into those im- 

 mense deserts, and to whom every living creature, man not except- 

 ed, is an object of fear, and a cause of danger. 



Not more disagreeable, and even alarming, is the hoarse moaning 

 voice of the ostrich, however, to the lonely traveller in the desert, 

 than were the speeches of Job's friends to that afflicted man. Of 

 their harsh and groundless censures, which were continually grat- 

 ing his ears, he feelingly complains : * I am a brother to dragons, 

 and a companion to owls [ostriches].' Like these melancholy crea- 

 tures that love the solitary place, and the dark retirement, the be- 

 reaved and mourning patriarch loved to dwell alone, that he might 

 be free from the teasing impertinence of his associates, and pour 

 out his sorrows without restraint. But he made a wailing also like 

 the dragons, and a mourning like the ostriches: his condition was 

 as destitute, and his lamentations as loud and incessant as theirs. 

 Or, he compares to those birds his unfeeling friends, who, instead 

 of pouring the balm of consolation into his smarting wounds, added 

 to the poignancy of his grief by their inhuman conduct. The os- 

 trich, even in a domestic state, is a rude and fierce animal ; and is 

 13* 



