360 



OSIER OSTRICH. 



beings are supported on rice as on wheat itself. It is 

 the staple com of the tropics, as the oat is of the 

 northern, and wheat of the temperate regions. The 

 culture, however, is exceedingly unhealthy ; for the 

 frequent flooding of the fields keeps them constantly 

 in a swampy state, and favours the production of 

 malaria. Rice has been raised in England on the 

 banks of the Thames, a crop having been gathered 

 in near Windsor. In Italy it is cultivated with suc- 

 cess ; but artificial irrigation has been carried there 

 to a higher degree of perfection than in any other 

 part of Europe ; and without artificial irrigation rice 

 cannot be raised any where. In India and China it 

 is raised on a most extensive scale. Every river is 

 intercepted by a succession of dams to throw out the 

 water, and to form large lakes or tanks for the supply 

 of the rice grounds. Some of these tanks are many 

 miles in circuit ; one not far from Madras, says Bu- 

 chanan, " is eight miles in length, by three in width, 

 and its contents are sufficient to supply with water 

 the lands of thirty-two villages for eighteen months, 

 supposing the usual rains to fall." 



Rice is imported into England in large quantities, 

 both from the East Indies and America. Upwards 

 of one hundred thousand bags of rice are now an- 

 nually imported, and the quantity is gradually in- 

 creasing. 



The Canada rice, although not yet much cul- 

 tivated, has all the natural capabilities to become 

 a valuable corn. Its grains are large and replete 

 with a fine bland farina. It grows abundantly in 

 the shallow waters of North America, and has 

 been acclimated here ; it grows freely in Middlesex 

 and Ross-shire. Attempts are being made, whicn it 

 is to be hoped will be successful, to cultivate it in 

 Ireland. Pinkerton says, " this plant seems to be 

 designed by nature to become the bread corn of the 

 north." 



OSIER. A general name of several sorts of wil- 

 lows, particularly the SalLc rubra of Hudson, being 

 much used by basket-makers, and for binders in 

 wood-work. 



OSMIA (Panzer). A genus of solitary bees, be- 

 longing to the family Apidce, and subfamily Dasygas- 

 tres, having the maxillary palpi three or four jointed, 

 the abdomen convex above, and of an oval form. 

 Some of the species are mason bees (having habits 

 very similar to those of the Megachiles], and their 

 heads are furnished with two or three horns, which 

 are probably serviceable in the construction of their 

 nests, which are hidden in the ground, crevices of 

 walls, old wood, and even occasionally in the deserted 

 shells of garden snails. Of the latter, some particu- 

 lars are given by M. Robineau Des Voidy, who has 

 obtained two species (O. bicolor and a new species 

 which he names O. helicicola) from nests respectively 

 formed in the deserted shells of Helix nemoralis and 

 H. pomatia. O. bicolor lays two eggs in each shell, 

 the female egg being always uppermost; above these 

 are constructed three or four cells of sand separated 

 from each other by a membranous partition. O. heli- 

 cicola deposits ten or twelve eggs, separated from 

 each other by distinct partitions, each being provided 

 with a magazine of honey ; but they do not wall in 

 the different strata either with sand or any earthy 

 matter placed above the domicile of their progeny. 

 They sometimes form their nest in Helix nemoralis, in 

 which they lay several eggs, closing the entrance with 

 a thick division formed of minute fragments of leaves 



triturated with the salivated excretion of the insect, 

 and arranged in successive layers. Also, in these 

 two species he discovered a minute parasite, which 

 lie named Eulophus osmiarum, the larva; of which, 

 alter feeding upon the larvae of the bees, change into 

 pupaj without spinning a cocoon or quitting the place 

 of their birth. 



Other species of the genus clip the petals of flowers, 

 of which they form their cells in the same manner as 

 the Megachile ; amongst these the Osmia papaveria, 

 or the Abeille tapissiere, is the most interesting, build- 

 ing its nest with bits of the scarlet petals of the wild 

 poppy ; others select for their nest the interior of 



lls. 



OSMITES (Linnaeus). A genus of evergreen 

 shrubs, natives of the Cape of Good Hope. They 

 belong to Composites, "are easy of cultivation, and 

 increase fti the green-house. 



OSTEOSPERMUM (Linnaeus). A genus of 

 evergreen shrubs, natives of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 remarkable for the bony hardness of their seeds. 

 They belong to Composites, and succeed well in the 

 green-house. 



OSTRICH (Stmthio, or rather, perhaps, Struthio- 

 nidce, the ostrich family). The most remarkable of 

 the feathered race, both for the vast size and swift 

 motion upon the ground which some of them possess, 

 and for the fact that the whole of them, without ex- 

 ception, are destitute of flight, and in some the wings 

 are so very rudimental, as not apparently to be capa- 

 ble of any purpose in the economy of the birds. In 

 Cuvier's arrangement, they form the first family of 

 Echassiers, or stilt birds, and they differ greatly from 

 all the rest both in their structure and their economy. 

 There are several genera of the family, and each 

 genus has a separate locality, no two of them being 

 found in the same part of the world. They are : the 

 ostrich properly so called, a native of Africa, and of 

 the adjoining parts of Asia ; the American ostrich, 

 which is not found except on the dry plains of South 

 America ; the Emu of Australia, which occurs only 

 in that country, and chiefly, or, at all events, most 

 abundantly in Van Diemen's Island ; the Cassowary. 

 which occurs only in the south-east of Asia ; the 

 Apteryx, which is confined to a peculiar district of 

 New Zealand ; and the Dodo, which, if it ever really 

 existed, had its locality at Madagascar, and probably 

 on some of theother islands to the eastward ofSouthern 

 Africa. If the last mentioned one ever really existed, 

 it appears now to be extinct, and to have been so 

 ever since the visiters of distant lands paid much at- 

 tention to subjects of natural history. That birds 

 so singular in their structure should be distributed 

 over parts of the country so widely separated from 

 each other, all different in their generic characters, 

 and each genus consisting only of a single species, is 

 a very curious fact in natural history. It is remark- 

 able too, that those which lie nearest to each other 

 in geographical position, do not resemble each other 

 the most in their structure. The bird of Australia and 

 and that of South America have much more resem- 

 blance to each other than the bird of Africa, which 

 lies intermediately between them. The New Zea- 

 land bird is perfectly unique, not resembling the 

 others in any thing but in being wingless, and it is 

 the most wingless of the whole. Of the bird of the 

 African islands nothing can with certainty be said. 



Of the greater number, notices have already been 

 given under their respective names as they are above 



