OSTRICH. 



363 



blow given with the foot ; and as the bird is very 

 finely balanced upon its centre of gravity, there is no 

 question that, by swinging upon the one foot, and 

 giving the whole momentum of its body to the delivery 

 of the other, it can strike in a very serious manner. 

 Cuvier mentions, after Pliny and his copyists, that 

 the ostrich throws stones behind it in its flight, with 

 as much velocity as if they were discharged from a 

 sling. The same has been said of the common seal, 

 and the fact of discharging the stones is most likely 

 true of both animals, though the cause is the extremely 

 rapid motion in the ostrich, and the slow and wriggling 

 motion, though with powerful organs, in the seal. 

 The error lies in the assumed intention of either the 

 one animal or the other ; for there is no reason to 

 suppose that either has the slightest intention of 

 assailing the enemy with this sort of stern battery. 

 When the ostrich runs in stony places, it is quite na- 

 tural to suppose that the velocity with which it springs 

 forward with the foot as a fulcrum, will make the 

 reaction of the foot project a loose pebble of consider- 

 able size with very great force, and of course the 

 pebble thus unintentionally projected may sometimes 

 take effect upon whatever is in pursuit of the ostrich, 

 and thus have the appearance of having been aimed. 

 There are many of the results of animal action which 

 in this way are supposed to proceed from intention, 

 and thus the conduct of animals is confounded with 

 that of man, and the proper understanding of both is 

 vitiated. 



Ostriches have been long and generally stigmatised 

 as very stupid animals ; and when we consider the 

 obtuseness of all their senses except that of sight, 

 they may appear stupid, as compared with those 

 animals which have all the senses in nearly equal 

 perfection. The stupidity or the acuteness of an 

 animal does not, however, depend upon the number 

 of well-developed senses with which it is furnished, but 

 upon the perfection of those which are essential to its 

 natural modes of life ; and as there happens to be no 

 animal which can be fairly contrasted with the ostrich 

 in this respect, it is impossible to come to any definite 

 conclusion on the subject of its stupidity ; and the 

 story of its being stupid may be allowed to take its 

 place very quietly in the same category as the 

 alleged desertion of her eggs and young by the female. 

 We often make strange mistakes as to the stupidity 

 of animals ; for the ass and the goose are proverbial 

 in this respect, and yet within their proper spheres they 

 are both very tractable and sagacious animals. 



The cry of the ostrich is a loud and harsh one, 

 though it is not very often heard ; and those who 

 profess to describe it are not quite agreed as to what 

 sound it resembles the most. We find some resem- 

 blance between the ostrich and the goose in the 

 sounds which they emit and the attitudes which they 

 assume when danger is very near them. We might 

 perhaps be prepared to look for this from a kind of 

 analogy that subsists between them. They graze on 

 different localities ; but still, when in a state of nature, 

 they are both grazing birds, and this is a similarity 

 independently of the difference there may be in other 

 respects ; and hence we find that a male ostrich, 

 excited by the near approach of danger, ruffles his 

 feathers, and hisses much after the same fashion that 

 a gander does ; and when either of them strikes 

 under this excitement, he strikes with the nail upon 

 the tip of his bill. 



The breeding of ostriches in their native plains is 

 a subject upon which there is no little uncertainty 



and difference of opinion. That the birds are very 

 prolific, and that, like our common poultry, in their 

 native jungles of the East they have no fixed season 

 for breeding, appears to be well ascertained. It is 

 equally well ascertained that the eggs are numerous, 

 though what the number is is not determined ; some 

 say fifty, and some not half as many, while others 

 again bring up the number to nearly a hundred. 

 There are various circumstances which tend to em- 

 barrass this part of their history. Under many cir- 

 cumstances, the females are gregarious in the breed- 

 ing time, and place their eggs so near to each other 

 that those of several birds may often be considered 

 as forming only one hatch. Another circumstance is 

 that birds which produce many eggs in a hatch are 

 subject to greater variations in the number than those 

 which produce only a few. The heat too which 

 prompts the bird to hatch, and stops the production 

 of more eggs for the time, comes on with different 

 degrees of rapidity according to circumstances, and 

 this necessarily affects the numbers of the broods. 



There is another circumstance in the matter, on 

 which the professed authorities are not quite agreed ; 

 and that is, whether the males are monogamous, or 

 each has a number of females. No mention is made 

 by any writer, worthy of credit, of having seen battles 

 of gallantry between male ostriches ; and if we were 

 to argue from the habits of most polygamous birds in 

 general, we would consider the silence with regard 

 to such battles as a proof of monogamy. There is, 

 however, an argument on the other side. Most birds 

 which pair strictly, and yet are social, as, for instance, 

 the pigeons, have usually a small number of eggs in 

 each hatch, as, for instance, one male and one female, 

 whereas the eggs of polygamous birds are far more 

 numerous. This is not universally the case, for 

 rooks and many other birds are an exception to it ; 

 but it holds in the case of almost all birds which are 

 social in the breeding time, and deposit their eggs 

 upon the ground. 



It may seem singular that birds which have been 

 for so long a period objects of great interest and in- 

 quiry, should have so many unsettled points in their 

 domestic economy ; but when we take into consider- 

 ation the watchful look of the birds, the extensive 

 horizon which they command, and the impossibility 

 of getting a clear view of them in the natural state 

 without depriving them of life, we find a sufficient 

 explanation of these uncertainties. 



The eggs, with the shells of which many must be 

 familiar, are sufficiently large for containing a pint or 

 more. They are of a dull white colour, with yellow- 

 ish or brownish mottlings, varying a good deal in 

 tint with the state of the atmosphere at the time of 

 their production. They are not always of the same 

 size, but vary in this respect like the eggs of poultry ; 

 and it is not understood that the largest-sized birds 

 produce the largest eggs in the one case any more 

 than in the other. They are seldom less than be- 

 tween five and six inches in the longest diameter ; 

 and they rarely, if ever, amount to so much as seven. 



These birds do not, under any circumstances, con- 

 struct a regular nest, or seek the cover of tall vegeta- 

 tion for the purpose of concealing their eggs. They 

 merely scrape a very shallow space in the dry sand ; 

 and as the eggs themselves approach closely in colour 

 to the sand itself, and to such pebbles as are usually 

 found upon it, they are probably more safe from de- 

 stroyers, in the absence of the female, than they 

 would be in a formal nest. This seems to be the 



