THE FARMER AT HOME. 



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mineralized state, and serve as strong evidences of the universal deluge, 

 and the changes which ensued. They also afford reason to believe 

 that the matter composing the solid parts of the globe, has undergone 

 violent and extensive revolutions, and that whole classes of vegetables 

 and animals now extinct, have existed on the globe, anterior to the 

 present constitution of things. 



ORNITHOLOGY. That branch of natural history which considers 

 and describes birds, their natures and kinds, their form, external and in- 

 ternal, and teaches their economy and uses ; also, the several orders and 

 genera in the alphabetical order. Birds are divided, according to the 

 form of their bills, into six orders, viz : Accipitres, as eagles, vultures, 

 and hawks : Picse, as crows, jackdaws, humming-birds, and parrots : 

 Anseres, as ducks, geese, swans, gulls : Grallae, as herons, woodcocks,- 

 and ostriches : Gallinge, as peacocks, pheasants, turkies, and common 

 fowls : and Passeres, comprehending sparrows, larks, swallows, &c. 



Birds are distinguished from quadrupeds, by their laying eggs : 

 they are generally feathered ; some few are hairy, and instead of hands 

 or fore-legs, they have wings. Their eggs are covered by a calcareous 

 shell, and they consist of a white, or albumen, which first nourishes 

 the chick during incubation ; and a yolk, which is so suspended within 

 it as to preserve the side on which the little rudiment of the chicken 

 is situated continually uppermost, and next to the mother that is sitting 

 upon it. The yolk is in great measure received into the abdomen of 

 the chicken, a little before the time of its being hatched, and serves 

 for its support, like the milk of a quadruped, and like the cotyledons 

 of young plants, until the system is become sufficiently strong for ex- 

 tracting its own food out of the ordinary nutriment of the species. 



OSTRICH. The ostrich is a bird very anciently known, since it 

 is mentioned in the oldest of books. It has furnished the sacred 

 writers with some of their most beautiful imagery ; and its flesh was, 

 even previous to the days of Moses, apparently a common species of 

 food, since we mid it interdicted, among other unclean animals, by the 

 Jewish legislator. The ostrich is generally considered as the largest 

 of birds, but its size serves to deprive it of the principal excellence of 

 this class of animals, the power of flying. The medium weight of 

 this bird, may be estimated at seventy-five or eighty pounds, a weight 

 which would require an immense power of wing to elevate into the 

 atmosphere. The head and bill of the ostrich somewhat resemble those 

 of a duck ; and the neck maybe compared to that of a swan, but that 

 it is much longer ; the legs and thighs resemble those of a hen ; though 

 the whole appearance at a distance bears a strong resemblance to that 

 of a camel ; it is usually seven feet high from the top of the head 

 to the ground, but from the back it is only four ; so that the head and 

 neck are above three feet long. Some reach the height of nine feet. 

 From the top of the head to the rump, when the neck is stretched out 

 in a right line, it is six feet long, and the tail is about a foot more. 



