CHAPTER XVI 
THE HISTORY OF THE OSTRICH 
WERE the ancestors of the Ostrich able to fly, 
and is the Ostrich, as we know him, an instance of 
“degradation”? Have his wings, after being large 
and strong enough for flight, been reduced till they 
are useless except to give some slight help in 
running? There are many examples of such degra- 
dation. Some moths, for instance the female Oak- 
egger, have lost the power of flight. In the vegetable 
kingdom wheat is a good instance. It has three 
rudimentary calyx leaves and remnants of a corolla, 
which seem to show that it was once a perfect flower 
with its parts in threes like a lily. This is a clear 
case, for the corolla in its present form is useless, and 
“degradation ” is the only principle on which we can 
account for its existence. But in many cases we 
cannot tell whether an organ is progressing towards 
a more perfect, or reverting to a less perfect, state. 
Those who maintain that the Ostrich and its allies 
are very far removed from the Carinate, or birds with 
keeled breastbones, and that their ancestors, like 
