OllDEU GRALLM, 4^5 



much as eighty pounds. The length of its legs, and of its 

 neck, and certain habits peculiar to it, have caused it to be 

 compared to the camel. Eldemiri, in his " History of Ani- 

 mals," informs us, that the vulgar belief in Arabia is, that 

 the ostrich is the production of a camel and a bird. From 

 such approximations are derived the names which the ostrich 

 has received in various countries. The Persian name of 

 sutur-morg, literally signifies camel-bird ; and it is the same 

 with the strouthos of the Greeks, and the strut hio-camelus of 

 the Latins. We cannot, however, say with Aristotle, that 

 the ostrich is of an equivocal nature, partim avis^ partim 

 qiiadrupes; but still we may aver, that in the chain of being, 

 it evidently constitutes the link between the birds and the 

 mammalia. Though decreed, from its bulk, to remain upon 

 the earth, and deprived of that faculty which is the eminent 

 characteristic of its class, it has received, in compensation, a 

 force and rapidity in the race, far surpassing that of all other 

 existing animals. 



To the external characters of this bird, given in the text, 

 we shall add a word or two, on its internal structure, and the 

 character of its senses. Here it presents many peculiarities 

 which approximate it to quadrupeds. Its tongue is very 

 short, formed like a horse-shoe, and it makes a projection 

 behind, which some writers have taken for an epiglottis. The 

 sternum, which in other birds has the form of the keel of a 

 vessel, in this resembles a sort of bvickler, which is favourable 

 to the movements of the bird, when, to lie down, it is obliged 

 to bend the knee at first, then to lean upon the sternum, and, 

 finally, on all the lower part of the body. In the dilatation 

 between the crop and gizzard, which may be considered as a 

 peculiar stomach, in the voluminous character of the intes- 

 tines, length of the coecum, &c., the ostrich, likewise, exhibits 

 a close analogy with the mammalia, especially with those of 



