OSTRICH. 6ll 



tables, grain, flesh, and even with stones, glass or iron. It lays 

 from forty to fifty eggs, as large as the head of a child. 



Though the ostrich be a bird known from the earliest ages, it is 

 probable that we are unacquainted with many interesting particulars 

 relating to its history. The authors of the sacred volume have 

 many comparisons drawn from its manners 5 and, as an article of 

 food, we know it was forbidden to the Jews. Aristotle also men- 

 tions this bird, as no less remarkable for its size than fecundity. In 

 those parched deserts of Africa, however, where it resides, and 

 where it runs with such precipitation on the approach of any in. 

 vader, it can seldom become an object of close examination, par- 

 ticularly to men of such curiosity as might induce them to describe 

 its manners. The race of these birds, though ancient, still remains 

 pure, and almost solitary. Like the elephant among quadrupeds, 

 the ostrich constitutes a genus offering few or no varieties, and per- 

 fectly distinguished by characters equally striking and permanent. 



The ostrich is peculiar to Africa, to the neighbouring islands, 

 and to those parts of Asia that lie in the vicinity of the African 

 continent. The native country of the rhiuoceros and the elephant, 

 of the latter of which the ostrich is the representative among birds, 

 is also the birthplace of this singular creature. It is seldom found 

 beyond the distance of thirty -five degrees from the line, on either 

 side ; and, as it is incapable of flight, it must, like the quadrupeds 

 of these latitudes, have always been confined to the ancient conti- 

 nent. It prefers, for its residence, those mountains, and parched 

 deserts, that are never refreshed by rain ; a circumstance which 

 tends to corroborate the report of the Arabs, that these birds never 

 drink. Vast flocks of them are seen in these barren and solitary 

 regions. At a distance they appear like an army of cavalry, and 

 often alarm the caravans that are travelling through them. 



The spoils of the ostrich are too valuable a prize to the hunts- 

 men, to admit of his remaining undisturbed, even in those wild 

 retreats. Among some nations, their eggs, their blood, their fat, 

 and their flesh, have been eagerly sought, as articles of food. Whole 

 nations have obtained the appellation of Struthophagi, from their 

 partiality for this food ; and even the luxurious Romans themselves, 

 as we learn from Apicius, considered the flesh of the ostrich as a 

 delicacy. The emperor Heliogabalus, so jusly famed for his extra- 

 vagance and tasteless profusion, caused, on one day, the brains of 

 ix hundred of them to be served up at one meal. At the present 



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