THE OSTRICH. 



PLATE XVII. 



Class Aves. Order V. Grallatoriae : Waders. Geuns 



Struthio. 



UNEQUALLED in stature among birds, strikingly peculiar 

 in its form, singular in its habits, and eagerly sought after 

 as furnishing in its graceful plumes one of the most elegant 

 among the countless vanities both of savage and civilized 

 life, the Ostrich has always excited a high degree of inter- 

 est in the minds even of the most superficial observers. 

 But far more strongly does this feeling prevail in that of the 

 reflecting naturalist, who does not regard this gigantic bird 

 as an isolated portion of the great system of nature, but 

 perceives in it one of the most remarkable links in the com- 

 plicated chain of the creation, too often invisible to human 

 scrutiny, but occasionally too obvious to be overlooked, 

 which connect together the various classes of animated 

 beings. With the outward form and the most essential 

 parts of the internal structure of Birds, it combines in 

 many of its organs so close a resemblance to the Rumina- 

 ting Quadrupeds, as to have received, from the earliest 

 antiquity, an epithet indicative of that affinity which later 

 investigations have only tended more satisfactorily to es- 

 tablish. The name of Camel-Bird, by which it was 

 known, not only to the Greeks and Romans, but also to 

 the nations of the East ; the broad assertion of Aristotle, 

 that the Ostrich was partly Bird and partly Quadruped ; 

 and that of Pliny, that it might almost be said to belong to 

 the Class of Beasts ; are but so many proofs of the popu- 

 lar recognition of a well authenticated zoological truth. 



The Ostrich, in fact, is altogether destitute of the power 

 of flight, its wings being reduced to so low a degree of 

 development as to be quite incapable of sustaining its 



VOL. II. 9 



