THE OSTRICH. 5 



animals with provision ; they eat almost every 

 thing ; and these barren tracts are thus doubly 

 grateful, as they afford both food and security. 

 The ostrich is of all other animals the most vora- 

 cious. It will devour leather, glass, hair, iron, 

 stones, or any thing that is given. Nor are its 

 powers of digestion less in such things as are di- 

 gestible. Those substances which the coats of 

 the stomach cannot soften, pass whole ; so that 

 glass, stones, or iron, are excluded in the form in 

 which they were devoured. All metals, indeed, 

 which are swallowed by any animal, lose a part 

 of their weight, and often the extremities of their 

 figure, from the action of the juices of the sto- 

 mach upon their surface. A quarter pistole, 

 which was swallowed by a duck, lost seven grains 

 of its weight in the gizzard before it was voided ; 

 and it is probable that a still greater diminution 

 of weight would happen in the stomach of an 

 ostrich : considered in this light, therefore, this 

 animal may be said to digest iron ; but such sub- 

 stances seldom remain long enough in the sto- 

 mach of any animal to undergo so tedious a dis- 

 solution. However this be, the ostrich swallows 

 almost every thing presented to it. Whether this 

 be from the necessity which smaller birds are 

 under of picking up gravel to keep the coats of 

 their stomach asunder, or whether it be from a 

 want of distinguishing by the taste what sub- 

 stances are fit and what incapable of digestion, 

 certain it is, that in the ostrich dissected by 

 Ranby there appeared such a quantity of hetero- 

 geneous substances, that it was wonderful how 



