THE OSTRICH. 53 



witnessed this spectacle in Senegal, declares that even 

 when mounted by two men, they outstripped in speed 

 an excellent English horse. In running they always 

 expand their wings, not, as has been erroneously 

 imagined, to catch the wind in order to assist them 

 in their flight, for they do it indifferently whether 

 running with or against the wind, but in all probability 

 to counterbalance their great height by the extension 

 of these lateral appendages. 



Their natural food consists entirely of vegetable 

 substances, and more especially of seeds and the 

 various kinds of grain, in pursuit of which they fre- 

 quently commit the greatest devastations among the 

 crops in cultivated countries. But so obtuse is the 

 sense of taste in this bird that it swallows with the 

 utmost indifference, sometimes even with greediness, 

 whatever comes in its way, whether of animal or mineral 

 origin, partly for the purpose, as it should seem, of 

 distending its stomach, and partly also to assist, like 

 the gravel in the crops of our common poultry, in the 

 trituration of its food. Its fondness for the metals in 

 particular was early remarked, and obtained for it the 

 epithet of " the iron-eating Ostrich." Popular credu- 

 lity even went so far as to assign to it the power of 

 digesting these substances, and many are the allusions 

 in our older writers to this fancied property. As an 

 amusing illustration of the prevalence of this belief we 

 may quote the following characteristic lines from " The 

 Boke of Philip Sparow," written by Master John 

 Skelton, a laurelled poet of the reign of King Henry 

 the Eighth : 



o. 



The Estridge that will eate 

 An horshovve so greate 

 In the steade of meat 

 Such fervent heat 

 His stomake doth freat. 



