334 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Timidity Friendship for the horse. 



delineated in the annexed engraving, affords ex- 

 cellent diversion. They are, consequently, afraid 

 of dogs : indeed such is their cowardice that they 

 dare not resist the smallest animal that is bold 

 enough to attack them ; and if they are wounded 

 ever so slightly, they die rather of fear than the 

 effects of their wounds. 



According to the ancients, the bustard enter- 

 tains no less friendship, for the horse than anti- 

 pathy against the dog; and the moment he sees 

 the former, this most timid of birds hastens to 

 meet him, and runs almost under his feet. This 

 extraordinary sympathy between animals of such 

 different natures, even if well attested, might be 

 accounted for by the circumstance of the bustard 

 finding in horse-dung grains of corn, only half 

 digested, which afford him a resource when in 

 want of other food. 



This bird makes no nest : but the female lays 

 her eggs in some hole in the ground, in a dry 

 corn-field ; these are two in number, as big as 

 those of a goose, and of a pale olive brown, 

 marked with spots of a deeper colour. If, dur- 

 ing her absence from the nest, any one handles 

 or even breathes upon the eggs, she immediately 

 abandons them. The young follow the dam soon 

 after they are excluded from the egg, but are not 

 capable for some time of flying. 



The bustards, according to the account given 

 by French naturalists, are confined to the old 

 continent, and a few of its adjacent islands: they 



