160 



THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



part on the tops of shrubby plants which are found in the 

 desert regions he frequents. There is no telling 1 what he 

 swallows besides, in the shape of indigestible trifles which take 

 liis fancy. Quite recently an ostrich, exhibited long at Rome, 

 was suffocated by thrusting his neck between the bars, and 

 when its stomach was opened there were found in it four large 

 stones, eleven smaller ones, seven nails, a necktie pin, an en- 

 velope, thirteen copper coins, fourteen beads, one French franc, 

 two small keys, a piece of handkerchief, a silver Tnedal of the 

 Pope, and the cross of an Italian Order ! 



There are several birds allied to the ostrich ; indeed, so closely 

 allied that for a long time naturalists regarded them as all of 

 the same family. Now, however, some of them are only looked 

 npon as cousins. Belonging to the family of Struthionidce 



eggs, an assertion which may be accounted for as before, by the 

 female visiting the nest to lay her eggs. The eggs are unlike 

 those of the African ostrich, being of a greenish colour, and 

 having very thin shells. 



Very little appears to be known about the emu, or Australian 

 cassowary, in the wild state, except that its food consists 

 chiefly of fruits, roots, and herbage ; that it is very fleet of foot, 

 and that it lays eggs of a fine malachite-green colour. The 

 English reader may be surprised to learn that the colouring 

 matter of these eggs is essentially the same as that of the blue- 

 green eggs of our hedge-sparrow. Yet such is the case, for Dr. 

 H. C. Sorby has made out, by means of the spectroscope, 

 that the colour in each results from the mixture of two sub- 

 stances, which he has named respectively oocyan and yellow 



WILD OSTRICHES. 



there is the ostrich (Strutliio camelus), the American rhea, or 

 nandn, and the dwarf nandu ; in the family of Casuariidce we 

 have the cassowary of the peninsula of Malacca, and the emu 

 of Australia ; while in the Apterygidae family we place the 

 apteryx of New Zealand. Each of these birds deserves a few 

 words of notice. 



The rhea, or American ostrich, which stands about five feet 

 high, abounds on the plains of La Plata. Several females will 

 lay in one shallow nest, but before they commence this partner- 

 ship they carelessly drop their eggs up and down the plains, so 

 that in one day's hunting Darwin picked up no less than twenty 

 lost and wasted eggs. The male bird alone hatches the eggs. 

 The rhea is a good swimmer, and readily takes to the water ; it 

 is also very swift of foot. 



The dwarf nandu (Rhea Darwinii) is very much smaller 

 than the species we have just referred to. It is found princi- 

 pally in Patagonia, and, according to Darwin, is so exceed- 

 ingly wary that he and his party were unable to approach it 

 save by the quiet and rapid descent of a river. 



The male cassowary is smaller than the female, and, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Bartlett, it undertakes the whole duty of incubation, 

 and afterwards takes care of the young. The natives of Ceram, 

 however, assert that the male and female sit alternately on the 



ooxanthine. And thus we get a bond of union little looked 

 for between the sparrow of our English hedgerows and the 

 emu of Australian plains ! 



The apteryx, which inhabits New Zealand, is distinguished by 

 its compact body, short thick neck, the entire absence of 

 tail, and the nearly rudimentary development of the wings. 

 The birds are much hunted by the natives for the skins, which 

 are made into dresses for their chiefs. Being a night bird, the 

 hunt takes place by torchlight. When attacked, the bird dis- 

 plays its courage by fighting vigorously, using its powerful feet 

 with great dexterity. 



So much, then, for the living members of the order Cursores. 

 Can we say anything of the ancient progenitor from whom they 

 all descend ? Nothing positive ; but believers in evolution 

 suppose that because young lions and pumas are marked with 

 feeble stripes and rows of spots, the progenitor of the lion and 

 puma was a striped animal. On the same grounds we may 

 imagine that because the young ostrich is covered with coarse 

 mottled and striped plumage, the ancient progenitor of these 

 Cursores was a striped bird, and he may have been very 

 different from his descendants of to-day in other important 

 respects just so much different, in fact, as the circumstances of 

 his day were different from those of the present. 



