614 



BIRDS. 



bird's digestive powers, that iron, and other hard substances, pass 

 through it without undergoing a greater change by the action of its 

 stomach, than they are known from experience to undergo in pass- 

 ing through the stomach and intestines of the common hen or 

 turkey. Whether by trituration, or by the gastric juice, it is not, 

 perhaps, yet fully ascertained ; but it is a well established fact, that 

 all metals lose somewhat of their weight when exposed to the ac- 

 tion of the stomach of birds, 



The cause of the insatiable voracity of the ostrich is the large- 

 ness of its stomachs, and the necessity it is under of tilling them ; 

 its swallowing indiscriminately whatever comes in its way, arises 

 from its want of taste and smell. The tongue and mouth are 

 covered with a soft cartilaginous substance, which renders them 

 insensible to the particles of any body that is applied to them. So 

 obtuse and dull is its sense of smell, that this bird will devour what 

 is perfectly poisonous. Vallisnieri saw one that had died from 

 having swallowed a large quantity of quick lime. 



This bird is highly salacious, but observes a strict connubial fide- 

 lity to his female ; a circumstance which is contrary to the usage 

 of most of the heavy birds. The season at which ostriches lay, 

 varies with the temperature of the climate. Those on the north 

 side of the line begin about the first of July ; while such as inhabit 

 the south of Africa defer it to the latter end of December. Cli- 

 mate and situation have also a great influence on their manner of 

 incubation. In the torrid zone the ostrich is contented with de- 

 positing her eggs in a mass of sand, carelessly scraped together 

 with her feet. There they are sufficiently heated by the warmth 

 of the sun, and need the incubation of the female only for a little 

 during the night. But although the ostrich be but little engaged 

 in hatching her eggs, she displays, by continual watching for the 

 preservation of her nascent progeny, all the solicitude of a tender 

 mother : and there is a cruel method of catching them, founded 

 upon this parental affection, which consists in planting around the 

 nest a number of sharp pales, upon which the female stabs herself 

 in her haste to return to her eggs. In proportion to the coldness 

 of the climate, the ostrich hatches with more assiduity ; and it is 

 only in the warm regions, where there is no danger of her eggs 

 being chilled, that she leaves them by day ; a circumstance from 

 which she very early incurred the reproach of. being destitute of 

 affection. So far, however, is this from being true, that she con- 



