FACTS ABOUT THE OSTRICH. 
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" Then, if the brightening Moon that lit his face, 
In darkness favoured hers, 
Oh! even with such a look, as fables say, 
The Mother Ostrich fixes on her egg, 
Till that intense affection 
Kindle its light of life, 
Even in such deep and breathless tenderness 
Oneiza's soul is centred on the youth." 
The fable is told in full by Vauslebo, in a quotation from an old 
Arabian manuscript. And the purport of it is, that when the ostrich 
would hatch her eggs she does not cover them as other fowls do, but 
both the male and female contribute to hatch them by the efficacy of 
their looks only ; and therefore wlien one has occasion to go to look for 
food, he advertises his companion by his cry, and the other never stirs 
during his absence, but remains with her eyes fixed upon the eggs till 
the return of her mate, and then goes, in her turn, to look for food : 
and this care of theirs is so necessary that it cannot be suspended for a 
moment ; for, if it should, their eggs would immediately become addle. 
This story, we are told, is emblematic of the Creator's perpetual atten- 
tion to the universe He has created. 
Passing from the region of Fable to that of Fact, let us see what 
travellers have to tell us respecting this famous bird. Barrow gi'ows 
quite animated in his sketch of the ostriches scouring the great desert 
plains, with their black and white plumes waving in the wind, and thus 
indicating the neighbourhood of their nests, especially if they wheel 
round the place whence they have started up: when they have no nest 
they take to flight as soon as they are disturbed, with the wing-feathers 
close to the body. He proceeds : There is something in the economy 
of this animal different in general from that of the rest of the feathered 
race — a fact, but not a particularly novel one ! He seems to be the 
link of union, in the great chain of Nature, that connects the winged 
with the four-footed tribe. His strong-jointed legs and cloven hoofs 
are well adapted for speed and for defence. The wings and all his 
feathers are insufficient to raise him from the ground ; his camel- 
shaped neck is covered with hair; his voice is a kind of hollow, mourn- 
ful lowing; and he grazes on the plain with the quagga and the zebra. 
