BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN, 69 



no less conspicuous. The Ostrich, formed to tra- 

 verse the burning sands of Africa, is long legged, 

 light, and amazingly agile. Denied the natural re- 

 servoir of the Camel, it is endowed with such an 

 abstinence from water, that the Arabs assert that it 

 never drinks ! and as it may roam many hundreds 

 of miles in quest of vegetation, it seems to have an 

 appetite for almost every kind of food. So that 

 there is no desert, however barren, but what pos- 

 sesses sufficiency to supply these creatures with pro- 

 visions, for they eat almost any thing. Glass, stones, 

 irODj &c. have been found in their stomachs ; and it 

 is affirmed, that in one was found a piece of stone 

 that weighed upwards of a pound. 



The Condor of America, is said to be the largest 

 bird endowed with flight; and being of the rapa- 

 cious kind, is armed with a beak so strong as to 

 pierce the hide of an ox. 



The Eagle, the most noble of rapacious volatiles, 

 has a tasje too nice for carrion ; and in order that 

 he may secure his living prey, and bear it in safety 

 to his nest in the inaccessible cliff. Nature has en- 

 dowed him with the faculty of vision in an eminent 

 degree, prodigious claws, amazing strength, and a 

 profusion of feathers down to his very toes. 



The Vulture delights in carrion and putridity ; 

 and this excellent anatomist may at once be distin- 

 guished from the Eagle by the nakedness of his neck 

 and head, as well as that acute sense of smelling, by 

 which, according to Herodotus, he can smeli a dead 

 carcase at the distance of fifteen thousand paces. 



