18/2.] ON AN OSTRICH LATELY IN THE SOCIETY'S COLLECTION. 357 



tripped, but never quite fell. For the last four months it had lost 

 flesh gradually. Whenever any fresh food was offered it, it would 

 take a little and then refuse any more, and would do thus, however 

 many new things were presented to it. 



It had suffered from diarrhoea more or less ever since October, the 

 excrement having a yellowish-green colour. 



Latterly it had been nearly continually in the sitting position, and 

 would stand very unwillingly. It also frequently rubbed its head 

 and eyes with its foot, as if something was irritating it there. 



In the post mortem examination very little structural disease was 

 found ; and the cause of death is more probably connected with the 

 contents of the stomach rather than with any other agency. 



There was more than half a gallon of stones in the stomach : most 

 of them were about the size of cob-nuts or peas; and they fully 

 dilated the organ and pulled it down abnormally. Mixed up with 

 these stones were numerous copper coins and pieces of coins in a 

 much worn state. There were two pennies and fifteen halfpence ; 

 and very few showed the least trace of the stamp they had previously 

 borne, and those only by an oblique light, the difference in density 

 of the metal, produced by the stamping, having caused them to wear 

 unevenly. Most of them were slightly curved, being meniscoid in 

 form. They were all highly polished and not in the least corroded. 

 Many were in pairs, with a layer of softish green matter, about -£$ 

 of an inch thick, interposed. The chips of coins were very numerous 

 and of all sizes below that of the coins themselves. No silver was 

 found, and nothing else except a glove-button and a nut, the latter 

 being at the bottom of the oesophagus. 



All the contents of the stomach were of a green colour; and two small 

 boluses of hay which it contained were tinged deeply with green. 



Four more coins, deeply corroded and greenish black, were found 

 in one of the intestinal caeca, together with a few stones. There 

 were also a few stones in the other caecum ; and the mucous mem- 

 brane of both caeca was congested and unhealthy in appearance, 

 which was not the case in the stomach to any extent. 



There were no symptoms of jaundice, which frequently accompanies 

 copper poisoning. The liver appeared healthy, except that scattered 

 about were a few dense white lumps about the size of peas, mostly 

 near the surface : it weighed 3 lb. 9 oz. No gall-bladder was present. 



The spleen was very small, and altogether weighed just under 

 2 oz. There was very little healthy tissue preserved, it mostly con- 

 sisting of spheroidal dense masses of matter which were about the 

 size of chestnuts, aud by protruding beyond the general surface pro- 

 duced an appearance of knobs. These masses, on cutting through 

 the capsule, separated entirely, and were then seen to be rough aud 

 altogether very like urinary calculi ; they were of a fawn-colour. The 

 organ was situated nearly in the middle line, just above the kidneys. 



The heart weighed 1 lb. 7oz., and gave origin to two carotid arte- 

 ries, one from each main branch, which ran to the head, a dis- 

 tance of about 3 feet 6 inches, side by side, in front of the cervical 

 vertebrae, in the groove formed by the anteriorly projecting processes 



