OSTRICH CATCHING. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE OSTRICH AND THE CASSOWARY. 



Size of the Ostrich — Its astonishing Swiftness — Ostrich Hunting — Stratagem of 

 the Ostrich for protecting its Young — Points of EesemLlance with the Camel- 

 Its Voracity — Ostrich Feathers — Domestication of the Ostri'i^h in Algeria — 

 Poetical Legend of the Arabs — The American Rheas — The Cassowary — The 

 Australian Emu. 



IN the African plains and wildernesses, where the lion seeks 

 his prey, where the pachyderms make the earth tremble 

 under their weighty strides, where the giraffe plucks the higli 

 branches of the acacia, and the herds of the antelope bound 

 along : there also dwells the Ostrich, the king of birds, if size 

 alone gives right to so proud a title ; for neither the condor 

 nor the albatross can be compared in this respect to the ostrich, 

 who raises his head seven or eight feet above the ground, and 

 attains a weight of from two to three hundred pounds. His 

 small and weak wings are incapable of carrying him through 

 the air, but their flapping materially assists the action of his 

 legs, and serves to increase his swiftness when, flying over tlie 

 plain, he ' scorns the horse and its rider.' His feet appear 

 hardly to touch the ground, and the length between each stride 



