338 Birds. 



motion, it raises its short wings and holds them quiver- 

 ing over its back, where they seem to serve as a kind of 

 sail to gather the wind, and cariy the "bird onwards. 

 The speed which it will thus attain is enormous. The 

 swiftest greyhound cannot overtake it ; and indeed an 

 Arab on his horse cannot hope to capture an ostrich 

 without having recourse to stratagem. He dexterously 

 throws a stick between its legs as it runs, and so tripping 

 it up, is enabled to secure it. 



In its flight it spurns the pebbles behind it like shot 

 against the pursuer. And this is not their only mode of 

 annoyance. They have been known to attack men with 

 their claws, with which they are able to strike with ter- 

 rific force. The feathers of the back in the cock are coal 

 black, in the hen only dusk} 7 , and so soft that they re- 

 semble a kind of wool. The tail is thick, bushy,' and 

 round ; in the cock whitish, in the hen dusky, with white 

 tops. These are the feathers so generally in requisition 

 to decorate the head-dress of ladies and the helmets of 

 warriors. 



The Ostrich swallows anything that presents itself, 

 leather, glass, iron, bread, hair, &c., but the old notion 

 that the Ostrich could digest metals is certainly in- 

 correct. An Ostrich in the Zoological Gardens in the 

 Regent's Park was killed by swallowing a lady's parasol. 



" O'er the wild waste the stupid Ostrich strays 

 In devious search, to pick a scanty meal, 

 Whose fierce digestion gnaws the temper'd steel." 



MICKLE'S LUSIAD. 



They are polygamous birds, one male being generally 

 seen with two or three, and sometimes with five, females. 

 The female Ostrich, after depositing her eggs in the 

 sand, trusts them to be hatched by the heat of the 

 climate; in the Book of Job there is a beautiful 

 passage relating to this habit of the Ostrich, " which 

 leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the 

 dust ; and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or 

 that the wild beast m&y break them. She is hardened 

 against her young ones, as though they were not hers, 



