INDEX. 329 



pounds, iv. 40. Season for laying depends on the climate 

 where the animal is bred ; these birds very prolific, and 

 lay from forty to fifty eggs at one clutch ; none has a 

 stronger affection for her young, nor watches her eggs 

 with greater assiduity; sit on them, like other birds, male 

 and female by turns ; assiduous in supplying the young with 

 grass, and careful to defend them, encountering every danger 

 boldly; way of taking them among the ancients ; the plumes 

 used in their helmets ; the ladies of the East use them as or- 

 naments in their dress ; plumes used in Europe to decorate 

 our hearses and hats ; feathers plucked from the animal 

 while alive more valued than those taken when dead ; some 

 savage nations of Africa hunt them for their flesh ; Helio- 

 gabalus had the brains of six hundred dressed in one dish ; 

 a single egg sufficient entertainment for eight men ; eggs 

 well tasted, and extremely nourishing ; Apicius gives a re- 

 ceipt of sauce for the ostrich ; of all chases, that of the 

 ostrich, though most laborious, the most entertaining ; use 

 they make of its skin ; method of hunting of the Strutho- 

 phagi ; its blood mixed with the fat a great dainty with 

 the Arabians ; inhabitants of Dara and Libya breed flocks 

 of them ; tamed with little trouble ; prized for more than 

 feathers in their domestic state ; often ridden upon and used 

 as horses ; Moore assures he saw a man at Joar travelling 

 upon an ostrich ; and Adanson asserts he had two young 

 ostriches, the strongest of which ran swifter than the best 

 English racer, with two negroes on his back ; of all animals 

 using wings with legs, in running, these by far the swiftest ; 

 parts of it convertible to medicinal purposes ; eggs, worst of 

 all to be eaten according to Galen ; the American ostrich, 

 40, &c. 



Ottar of Roses, a modern perfume, valued for its vegetable 

 fragrance, iii. 106. 



Otter, the link between land and water animals, resembles ter- 

 restrial in make, and aquatic in living ; swims faster than it 

 runs ; is brown, and like an overgrown weasel ; its descrip- 

 tion ; voracious animal, found near lakes ; not fond of fish- 

 ing in running water, and why ; when in rivers, always swims 

 against the stream, to meet rather than pursue the fish it 

 preys upon ; in lakes, destroys more than it devours, and 

 spoils a pond in a few nights ; tears to pieces the nets of the 

 fishers ; two different methods of fishing practised by it ; 

 infects the edges of lakes with the dead fish it leaves ; often 

 distressed for provisions in winter, when lakes are frozen, 

 and then obliged to live upon grass, weeds, and bark of 

 trees ; its retreat the hollow of a bank made by the water ; 

 there it forms a gallery several yards along the water; how 

 it evades the fowler ; time of coupling ; description of its 

 habitation ; way of training it up to hunt fish, and, at the 



