OSTRICH. 



365 



of the ostrich as being very great. On its rapid 

 marches it always extends the wings, the loose and 

 flocculent plumes of which take a hold on the air, 

 and prevent that swinging from side to side of the 

 axis of the body, which would otherwise result from 

 the motion of a long bodied animal with the axis 

 horizontal, and upon two legs only. Those produced 

 plumes, both of the wings and of the tail, perform an 

 office not dissimilar to that which is performed by 

 the swimming paws of the aquatic mammalia. The 

 mode of action and the kind of organ are of course 

 different, because the one animal moves through the 

 air, and the "other through the water; but making 

 this allowance, and considering that the organ of 

 progressive motion is a pair of legs in the land ani- 

 mal, and a swimming tail in the aquatic one, there is 

 no inconsiderable resemblance between the two. 



When the ostrich is in vigorous health, and unin- 

 cumbered by any load, it is said to outstrip the very 

 swiftest of four-footed animals, provided they follow 

 its track, and do not cross it on the returns of its 

 loops, as is done by the ostrich-hunters, whether 

 mounted on horseback only, or accompanied by 

 greyhounds. It is further said, that, with the load of 

 two men on its back, an ostrich can run as fleetly as 

 a good saddle-horse at full speed. Adanson, in his 

 account of Senegal, mentions having seen this repeat- 

 edly ; but we are not aware that it has been verified 

 by the observation of more recent describers. From 

 their disposition to be social in the wild state, 

 ostriches . may be expected to be susceptible of 

 domestication ; and if they could be domesticated, 

 their great strength, great swiftness, and great 

 powers of endurance, would render them very valuable 

 labourers, especially as carriers on long journeys 

 across the deserts. Their economy in wild nature, 

 and also their haunts, are, however, different from 

 anything which could be either readily or generally 

 obtained in an artificial state, even within the geo- 

 graphical limits of the birds ; and though they are 

 far from being exclusively tropical in their localities, 

 we have no reason to suppose that domestication 

 could temper their nature to the endurance of the 

 winters of middle, or even of southern Europe, if 

 exposed to the open air. They have been so far 

 domesticated in climates suited to their nature, as to 

 be kept in flocks within enclosures ; and as they can- 

 not fly, of course hedges or walls are quite adequate 

 to keep them in. Some of the boors or farmers at 

 the Cape, living toward the interior of the country, 

 have at times paid a little attention to the partial 

 taming of ostriches, and have found it riot difficult to 

 reduce them to such a state of domestication, or 

 rather endurance of the vicinity of man, as that they 

 go about the farms without attempting to desert per- 

 manently to the uninhabited deserts. Hitherto, how- 

 ever, they have been objects of curiosity, and not of 

 advantage, for they have been turned to no useful 

 purpose ; and their voracity and strength are so 

 great, that, though splendid ornaments certainly, they 

 are very expensive ones. In farm-yards they are said 

 to be absolutely destructive, by trampling to death the 

 ducks and common poultry with their great and heavy 

 feet, and also by swallowing the young. That they 

 do the latter from any carnivorous instinct is by 

 no means probable ; for, if true, it seems rather to be 

 a part of that instinct which they have of indiscrimi- 

 nately swallowing all kinds of substances, nutritious, 

 indifferent, and poisonous. If the strength of the 



ostrich has not been turned to much account in the 

 way of service, the flesh and the eggs have been 

 turned to little more as articles of food. It is true 

 that the Romans, in the days of that depraved and 

 ridiculous luxury which finally converted the rulers 

 of the world into the meanest and most contemptible 

 of its slaves, introduced certain parts of the ostrich at 

 their feasts. Heliogabulus is mentioned as having 

 had the brains of six hundred ostriches cooked for a 

 single feast. In the judgment of reason this can be 

 looked upon as no other than a most profligate waste, 

 something similar to the dissolving of pearls in beve- 

 rages, where a pinch of chalk and a little bit of calf's- 

 foot jelly would have had the same effect. When, 

 however, we call to mind the prejudice which at that 

 time set the ostrich down as the special emblem of 

 stupidity, it is impossible to avoid admiring the ad- 

 mirable tact with which this imperial, but foolish 

 glutton, suited his mess of ostriches' brains to the 

 contents of his own cranium. 



The plumes of the ostrich, though mere ornaments, 

 are of more legitimate use. They have been sought 

 after as ornaments from time immemorial, as we 

 already hinted ; and it should seem that there was 

 early noticed in them the superiority of the living 

 clothing of animals over the dead. It is well known 

 that dead hair is very inferior, both in beauty and 

 durability, to that which is obtained from the living 

 subject. The same holds good in the feathers of the 

 ostrich ; those which are pulled from the living 

 animal being far more beautiful, as well as durable, 

 than those which are obtained from the dead one. 

 It is to be understood, however, that the hair or 

 feathers taken from an animal very recently killed 

 is to be considered as living rather than as dead ; for 

 the durability of such hair or feathers is much greater 

 than that of those which have been cast. Vast num- 

 bers of those feathers are sent to all the countries in 

 the northern and middle latitudes, and, in short, to 

 every part of the eastern continent where a native 

 supply is not found from the bird itself. For the 

 supply of the west of Europe those plumes are 

 obtained, in great part, from the northern margin of 

 the Great African Desert ; and Mogador, in Morocco, 

 is the chief part from which they are sent. 



The skin of the ostrich is used as well as the 

 feathers. It is exceedingly thick and tough, and 

 employed in some of the southern countries for the 

 same purposes as buff jackets were used at one time 

 in Europe. It is formed into a sort of cuirass ; and, 

 as Butler says of the doublet of the redoubted hero 

 of his matchless poem, it is, 



"Though not sword, yet cudgel proof." 



THE RHEA (Rhea Americana). This bird is usually 

 styled the American ostrich, and it has sometimes 

 been described as belonging to the same genus with 

 the cassowary of the eastern isles, and again as of the 

 same genus with the emu of New Holland. It is, 

 however, perfectly distinct from both of these birds, 

 as well as from the ostrich properly so called. Its 

 characters are : the bill straight, short, soft, depressed 

 at the base, and a little compressed at the point, 

 which is obtuse, and furnished with a nail ; the 

 lower mandible is very much depressed, flexible, and 

 rounded at the tip ; the nasal grooves are very large, 

 expending to the middle of the bill ; the nostrils are 

 on each side of the surface of the bill, cleft longitu- 

 dinally, and open ; the feet are long, very strong 

 and robust, and they have three toes directed to the 



