2G2 LETTER XLII. 



to form one of the connecting links in the great chain 

 of animal life. 



As the bat seems to be the last in the class of qua- 

 drupeds, and to make the nearest approach to that of 

 volatiles, so the ostrich, the emu, the cassowary, and 

 the dodo, appear the least removed from the former, 

 and may be considered as constituting the first gra- 

 dation of the latter class. 



THE OSTRICH 



has been noticed from the remotest antiquity, for we 

 find it included by Moses among the birds which 

 were accounted unclean: that it was well known to 

 the Israelites and Egyptians at so early a period is 

 not indeed surprising, as it inhabits scarcely any other 

 countries than the sandy deserts bordering on Egypt 

 and Palestine. It appears, indeed, perfectly adapted 

 to those arid regions, where eternal sterility reigns. 

 It delights to range in those immense solitudes, 

 where, if nature, parched with almost perpetual 

 drought, produce but few vegetables, and still less 

 water, its appetite requires but little selection to gra- 

 tify it; and its powers of digestion are inconceivable. 

 Its voracity is such, that it feeds not only on every 

 thing that is edible, but voraciously devours leather, 

 glass, iron, and stones. When an ostrich is killed, its 

 stomach is found crammed with such an assemblage 

 of incongruous substances, as appears astonishing; 

 and were not the fact well known, would be abso- 

 lutely incredible. It is asserted that this bird never 

 drinks; and the aridity of the deserts which it inha- 

 bits, gives a sanction to this opinion. 



The ostrich, in its general figure, resembles the ca- 

 mel, and might at a distance be mistaken for that ani- 

 mal. It is undoubtedly the largest of all birds, being 

 nearly as hrgh as a man on horseback. It measures 

 seven feet from the top of the head to the feet, but 

 from the back only four ; its neck is consequently 

 three feet long. When the neck is stretched out, it 

 measures six feet from the head to the rump. Each 

 wing with the feathers is about three feat in length, 

 and about hali as long without them. 



