174 EMOOS FROM WINDSOR. 
The Ostrich is peculiar to the hotter 
parts of Africa. A misapprehension appears 
to have long prevailed as to the practice of 
all the species, in respect to the hatching 
of its eggs, and rearing of its young. It has 
been said to leave them in the sand, and 
never to sit upon them; but in the first 
place, its habits, in these respects, have been 
found to vary with the degrees of climate; 
and in the second, several of the particulars 
connected with them appear to have become 
better understood. The Ostrich, if it some- 
times leaves its eggs by day, carefully broods 
over them by night; and even the males, as 
well as the females, sit upon them by turns. 
Neither is it more true, that they forsake 
their young ones as soon as the latter leave 
the shell. On the contrary, the young, for 
several days after they are hatched, are un- 
able to walk, and their parents are very assi- 
ducus in supplying them with grass and 
water, and will encounter every danger in 
their defence. Some foundation, however, 
must have subsisted for the opposite ac- 
counts given, and this seems to consist in a 
part of the economy of the species, in which, 
