2 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



boys who lived in those times, which we read about in 

 the Books of Genesis and Exodus, had only to wander out 

 into the neighbouring desert, to catch a glimpse of the 

 tall fleet birds moving swiftly over the stony plains. 



The Israelites must have seen them during their long 

 march through the wilderness ; and centuries later, the 

 Prophet writers, when they wanted to describe the fate 

 of a thriving city laid waste and all its people gone, 

 pictured it as a haunt of Ostriches — the birds that love 

 loneliness and o]3en spaces/ Their doleful cry, too, was 

 noticed. This has been said by African travellers to be 

 easily mistaken for the lion's roar, but Canon Tristram, 

 who travelled widely in Scripture lands, says : "To my 

 own ear it sounded more like the hoarse lowing of an ox 

 in pain." 



Later on, the Romans got to know of this stately bird, 

 and no doubt it was one of the myriad of wild creatures 

 which from time to time were captured, and sent to Rome 

 for exhibition in the arena. Its plumes must have 

 ornamented many a fan and fly-whisk in rich men's 

 houses. And certain foolish gluttons, priding themselves 

 on being givers of costly dinners, made of its brains "a 

 dainty dish" that for awhile set people talking. We 

 are told that one of the Emperors, the extravagant and 

 ignoble Heliogabalus, had no less than six hundred 

 Ostriches driven together and shot down to furnish one 

 dish — one of those acts of wicked waste that were all 

 too common in Imperial Rome. 



The merchant adventurers of Venice, who, in the 

 Middle Ages, were Europe's carriers and traders, especially 

 with Eastern lands, must have brought away many an 



^ In several places, in the Old Testament, the word " owls " is used instead of 

 " Ostriches." This has been made right in the Eevised Version., 



