1633.1 SOUTH AMERICAN OSTRICH. 80 



the carcass of an animal embedded in it is perfectly preserved. 

 With these facts we must grant, as far as quantity alone of vege- 

 tation is concerned, that the great quadrupeds of the later ter- 

 tiary epochs might, in most parts of Northern Europe and Asia, 

 have lived on the spots where their remains are now found. I 

 do not here speak of the kind of vegetation necessary for their 

 support ; because, as there is evidence of physical changes, and 

 as the animals have become extinct, so may we suppose that the 

 species of plants have likewise been changed. 



These remarks, I may be permitted to add, directly bear on 

 the case of the Siberian animals preserved in ice. The firm con- 

 viction of the necessity of a vegetation possessing a character of 

 tropical luxuriance, to support such large animals, and the im- 

 possibility of reconciling this with the proximity of perpetual 

 congelation, was one chief cause of the several theories of sudden 

 revolutions of climate, and of overwhelming catastrophes, which 

 were invented to account for their entombment. I am far from 

 supposing that the climate has not changed since the period 

 when those animals lived, which now lie buried in the ice. At 

 present I only wish to show, that as far as quantity of food alone 

 is concerned, the ancient rhinoceroses might have roamed over 

 the steppes of central Siberia (the northern parts probably being 

 under water) even in their present condition, as well as the 

 living rhinoceroses and elephants over the Karros of Southern 

 Africa. 



I will now give an account of the habits of some of the more 

 interesting birds which are common on the wild plains of North- 

 ern Patagonia; and first for the largest, or South American 

 ostrich. The ordinary habits of the ostrich are familiar to every 

 one. They live on vegetable matter, such as roots and grass ; 

 but. at Bahia Blanca I have repeatedly seen three or four come 

 down at low water to the extensive mud-banks which are then 

 dry, for the sake, as the Gauchos say, of feeding on small fish. 

 Although the ostrich in its habits is so shy, wary, and solitary, 

 and although so fleet in its pace, it is caught without much dif- 

 ficulty by the Indian or Gaucho armed with the bolas. When 

 several horsemen appear in a semicircle, it becomes confounded, 

 and does not know which May to escape. They generally prefer 



