OSTRICH. 



361 



enumerated; and the reader who wishes for a short 

 account of them may turn to these names in their 

 alphabetical order, with the exception of the ostrich 

 properly so called, and the American ostrich, or 

 Rhea, and thus the present article may be restricted 

 to ?ome notice of them. 



THE OSTRICH (Struthlo camelus), is one of the most 

 celebrated birds in the whole annals of the feathered 

 race ; and, like all birds and other animals which 

 have been famous from remote antiquity, much that 

 is marvellous has been recorded of it. It is the 

 swiftest footed of known animals ; the one which lives 

 most habitually in the desert, and it is remarkable for 

 its proneness to swallow a vast number of substances, 

 and also for the great vigour of its digestive powers, 

 though ia the latter respect many tales are reported 

 of it which are totally without foundation such, for 

 instance, as its power of digesting, that is, of con- 

 verting into animal nutriment all sorts of stones and 

 metals. Now this is not true ; for the greater part of 

 every stone or metal is composed of elements quite 

 unfit for entering into the composition of any animal 

 substance ; and it is just as absurd to suppose that 

 the ostrich has the power of converting iron or brass 

 into the substance of its own body, as it would be 

 to suppose it capable of converting its own vegetable 

 food into gold or any other metal. 



The generic characters of the ostrich are : the bill 

 of mean length, straight, blunt, and depressed at the 

 point, which is rounded and furnished with a nail. 

 The two mandibles are of equal length ; the nostrils 

 are oblong, placed a little on the surface and toward 

 the middle of the bill ; the head is naked of feathers 

 and colours on the upper part ; the legs are very 

 long and very strong and muscular ; each of them 

 has only two toes, the internal one very stout, and 

 furnished with a broad claw ; the external about half 

 the length of the internal, and without any claw. The 

 legs are stout and fleshy, nearly as far as the tarsal 

 joints, and they are very free in their motions. There 

 are no wings n't for flight, for both they and the tail 

 consist of long and flexible feathers, quite incapable 

 of acting against the air in any kind of flight. The 

 lower part of the neck, the breast, the belly, and the 

 back are black, mottled with white and grey. The 

 large plumes of the wings and tail are of a white 

 colour, with remarkably flexible shafts, and beautiful 

 loose webs of silky texture, which have from time im- 

 memorial been used as ornaments in military and 

 state dresses, and in pageants. The intermediate 

 parts of the skin of the bird are covered with soft 

 down, which appears between the plumes. The bill 

 is grey for the greater part of the length, and black 

 at the tip ; and the hides are brownish-yellow. When 

 the ostrich, in its full-grown state, stands with its 

 neck at the full elevation, its total height is about 

 seven or eight feet, and, if in good condition, it some- 

 times weighs as much as eighty pounds. 



It is thus a majestic bird in its appearance, and 

 stately in its gait, from the length of its legs and the 

 stretch, and bounding elasticity of its step. But 

 though it is thus the giant of birds by way of eminence, 

 it is one of the most harmless and inoffensive of the 

 whole race. It offers no voluntary attack upon any 

 animal ; and its fleetness is such, that no enemy save 

 man, can master it in those open wastes which form 

 its principal habitation. The eggs of the ostrich are 

 contained in very strong shells, and they are of such 

 dimensions, that a single one weighs about three 



pounds. It has often been said that when the female 

 ostrich lays her eggs, she abandons them to their 

 fate, without giving herself any more concern either 

 about them or about her young. Nothing can be 

 more unfounded as a general trait in the charac- 

 ter of the ostrich than this. Like all birds which 

 subsist upon vegetable food, which they procure ex- 

 clusively by walking on the ground, ostriches are 

 social animals, fond of the company of each other ; 

 and we are acquainted with no social animal which 

 deserts or neglects its young, and its doing so would 

 be in direct opposition to the social propensity, and 

 thus the character of the animal would be incon- 

 sistent with itself, which never happens as a general 

 habit in any one animal whatever. 



That the ostrich sometimes does leave her eggs, 

 and that the heat of the sun acting on the dry sand 

 may, in such cases, assist in hatching them, is no 

 doubt true. But even then, the ostrich, if there is 

 only one in the locality, is never beyond the range of 

 her own vision from the eggs ; and if an enemy ven- 

 tures near them, she hastens to the spot, and defends 

 them with great bravery and resolution. When she 

 does leave them in this manner, we may rest assured 

 that there are physical circumstances in the place 

 where they are deposited, which make the process of 

 incubation go on as safely as if the bird herself were 

 present. Though ostriches are confined to the dry 

 and open plains, their range is very wide. They 

 occur from the dry grounds immediately behind 

 the mountains of Atlas in Northern Africa, south- 

 ward to the country of the Cape. In longitude their 

 range is still greater. It stretches from the western 

 extremity of the African desert, through the dry and 

 naked parts of Arabia, Persia, and the Indian deserts, 

 nearly to the banks of the Ganges. Of course there 

 are many places within those limits quite unadapted 

 for the pasture of ostriches. There are marshes, 

 woods, and cultivated grounds, and the birds are not 

 adapted for either of these, and not found upon them. 

 But within the range mentioned there are ostriches 

 upon every suitable pasture ; though Africa, and 

 especially the margins of the great desert in Northern 

 Africa, are the head-quarters where they are found 

 in the greatest numbers, and of the largest size. 



Now, in so wide an extent there may be said to be 

 three distinct kinds of locality in which the female 

 ostrich may have to deposit her eggs. In the first 

 place, there are the situations so far into the dry de- 

 sert, that there scarcely forms any dew during the 

 night ; and here the ostrich can afford to be absent 

 from her eggs, during the whole twenty-four hours, 

 if such an absence should be necessary. For the 

 radiation of heat from the sand during the night 

 would be quite sufficient to keep up a stimulus to 

 vitality in the eggs, until the direct sun of another 

 day came upon them. It is in those situations that 

 the ostrich has most occasion to be absent, because 

 the very circumstance of the absence of moisture, 

 which prevents the chilling of the surface by the 

 evaporation of dew, diminishes the quantity of food 

 which the animal can meet with, and this compels 

 her to range over a far greater extent of surface, in 

 order to preserve her own life. Under such cir- 

 cumstances, she also actually requires more food ; 

 for the food requisite to the healthy state of an 

 animal, increases with the increase of its labour. 



Instead therefore of setting the brand of an 

 unnatural mother upon the ostrich, we find a very 



