78 



THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 



yellow. These are frequent!}' formed into cups; and are 

 used ill various ways as ornaments by the natives of the 

 countries in which they are found. The eggs themselves 

 form, according to Thunberg, an article of considerable 

 commerce at the Cape, where they are sold to the vessels 

 that touch there, the thickness of their shells rendering 

 them preferable for a sea voyage to those of any other bird. 

 They are generally regarded as great luxuries; but on this 

 point there is some difference of opinion, M. Sonnini 

 affirming that, either from habit or from prejudice, he could 

 not bring himself to consider them so good as the eggs to 

 which he had been accustomed; while M. Cuvier raptu- 

 rously exclaims, that they are not merely to be regarded as 

 delicacies, but are, in fact, "ipsissimse dclicia;;" an expres- 

 sive, but untranslatable phrase, which we can only render, 

 in piebald English, the ne plus ultra of good eating. It 

 is by no means improbable that, in the latter instance, 

 the rarity of the dish conferred upon it a higher relish 

 than its own intrinsic flavour would have warranted; as 

 was undoubtedly the case when the dissolute Roman Em- 

 peror, in Rome's degenerate days, ordered the brains of 

 six hundred Orstriches to be served up to his guests at a 

 single supper. 



The flesh of these birds was among the unclean meats 

 foi^bidden to the Jews by the Mosaical law. It seems, 

 however, to have been in especial favour with the Romans, 

 for we read of its being frequently introduced at their 

 tables. We are even told by Vopiscus, that the pseudo- 

 Emperor Firmus, equally celebrated for his feats at the 

 anvil and at the trencher, devoured, in his own imperial 

 person, an entire Ostrich at one sitting. It is to be hoped 

 that the bird was not particularly old; for it is allowed on 

 all hands, at least in the present day, that when it has 

 reached a certain age, it is both a tough and an unsavoury 

 morsel. The young are, nevertheless, said to be eatable; 

 and we may well imagine that the haunch of such a bird 

 would furnish a tolerably substantial dish. The Arabs, it 

 may be added, have adopted the Jewish prohibition, and 

 regard the Ostrich as an unclean animal; but some of the 

 barbarous tribes of the interior of Africa, like the Struthio- 

 phagi of old, still feed upon its flesh whenever they are 

 fortunate enough to procure it. 



The Ostriches in the Society's collection would be truly 

 a noble pair, were it not for an unnatural curve in the 

 neck of the male, in consequence, it is said, of its having 

 formerly swallowed something more than usually bulky, 

 and hard of digestion. It was probably on account of this 

 slight deformity that the female took upon herself, snon 

 after their arrival in the Gardens, to tease and worry him 

 in various ways, so that the poor bird was literally hen- 

 pecked by his mate. The system of persecution was at 



length carried so far tliat it was found necessary to sepa- 

 rate them, and the female has now the whole enclosure 

 to herself She is a remarkably fine bird, in excellent 

 health and condition, and, when her neck is elevated to 

 its utmost pitch, is fully eight feet in height. They were 

 both, formerly, in the possession of the late Marchioness 

 of Londonderry, on whose death they were presented to 

 the Society, by the Marquis of Lothian, in the spring of 

 the present year. — Menag. Zool. Society. 



From llie Edinburgh Philosophical Jourual. 



(ESTRUS HOMINIS, 



Or the Larva of a Gad-Fly, which deposits its Eggs in 

 the Bodies of the Human Species. 



An accurate knowledge of the natural history of the 

 genus QLstrus, (gad-fly or breeze) is of great importance in 

 an economical point of view, when we consider that the 

 most valuable of our domestic animals, the horse, ox, and 

 sheep, form the usual nidus for their development and in- 

 crease, and are frequently incommoded, sometimes essen- 

 tially injured, or even destroyed, by their attacks. The 

 insect called botts by farriers, is the larva of the CEslrus 

 Eqiii, and, although Mr. Bracy Clark (to whom we owe 

 the best account of that and other species of the genus) con- 

 cludes that, upon the whole, they are not injurious to the 

 horse, it appears from the accounts of Valisnieri, that the 

 epidemic which proved so fatal to the horses of the Man- 

 tuan and Veronese territories during the year 1713, was 

 primarily occasioned by these larvas. The disease called 

 staggers in sheep is likewise occasioned by an insect of 

 this genus, [CEstrits ovis) and the hides of cattle are per- 

 forated by another kind, which lives beneath the skin. 

 The reindeer of the Laplanders, which has been said to 

 unite in one animal the useful qualities of many, is more 

 than almost any other a martyr to a species of gad-fly, 

 probably peculiar to itself, and therefore named by natural- 

 ists CEstrus Tarandi. 



That man himself, the "Lord of the Creation," should 

 be the subject of similar attacks, is not so generally known. 

 Humboldt, however, mentions, that he examined several 

 South American Indians, whose abdomens were covered 

 with small tumors, produced by what he inferred (for no 

 very positive information seems to have been acquired on 

 the subject) to have been the larva; of some species of 

 ffistrus. Larvse of analogous forms have also been detected 

 in the frontal and maxillary sinuses of Europeans; and the 

 surgical and physiological journals of our own and other 



