AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
75 
carnivora, even when most perfectly tamed, retain charac- 
ters peculiar to themselves, which can never be eradicated; 
the cat, although caressed and fondled, seldom or ever for- 
gets the marked propensities of her race, whilst the dog, 
though infinitely more powerful, loses his natural peculia- 
rities to assume those of his master. Instinct appears to 
militate, in the strongest manner, against education, whilst 
those animals possessing more of that faculty approaching 
to human reason, are capable of acquiring habits and man- 
ners wholly at variance with their natural character. 
THE OSTRICH. 
Unequalled in stature among birds, strikingly peculiar 
in its form, singular in its habits, and eagerly sought after 
as furnishing in its graceful plumes one of the most elegant 
among the countless vanities both of savage and civilized 
life, the Ostrich has always excited a high degree of inte- 
rest in the minds even of the most superficial observers. 
But far more strongly does this feeling prevail in that of 
the reflecting naturalist, who does not regard this gigantic 
bird as an isolated portion of the great system of nature, 
but perceives in it one of those remarkable links in the 
complicated chain of the creation, too often invisible to 
human scrutiny, but occasionally too obvious to be over- 
looked, which connect together the various classes of ani- 
mated beings. With the outward form and the most essen- 
tial parts of the internal structure of Birds, it combines in 
many of its organs so close a resemblance to the Rumina- 
ting Quadrupeds, as to have received, from the earliest 
antiquity, an epithet indicative of that affinity which later 
investigations have only tended more satisfactorily to esta- 
blish. The name of Camel-Bird, by which it was known, 
not only to the Greeks and Romans, but also to the nations 
of the East; the broad assertion of Aristotle, that the 
Ostrich was partly Bird and partly Quadruped; and that of 
Pliny, that it might almost be said to belong to the Class 
of Beasts; are but so many proofs of the popular recognition 
of a well authenticated zoological truth. 
The Ostrich, in fact, is altogether destitute of the power 
of flight, its wings being reduced to so low a degree of 
development as to be quite incapable of sustaining its 
enormous bulk in the air. Its breast-bone is consequently 
flattened and uniform on its outer surface, like that of a 
Quadruped, offering no trace of the elevated central ridge 
so generally characteristic of Birds, and so conspicuously 
prominent in those which possess the faculty of supporting 
themselves long upon the wing. Its legs, on the contrary, 
are excessively powerful; and are put in action by muscles 
of extraordinary magnitude. This muscular power, toge- 
ther with the great length of its limbs, enables it to run 
with incredible swiftness, and to distance, with little exer- 
tion, the fleetest Arabian horses. The total want of 
feathers on every part of these members, and their division 
into no more than two toes, connected at the base by a 
membrane, a structure not unaptly compared to the elon- 
gated and divided hoof of the Camel, have always been 
considered striking points of resemblance between these 
animals: but there is another singularity in their external 
conformation which affords a still more remarkable coin- 
cidence. They are both furnished with callous protube- 
rances on the chest, and on the posterior part of the 
abdomen, on which they support themselves when at rest; 
and they both lie down in the same manner, by first 
bending the knees, and then applying the anterior callosity, 
and lastly, the posterior, to the ground. Add to this that, 
equally patient of thirst, and endowed with stomachs some- 
what similar in structure, they are both formed for inha- 
biting, to a certain extent, the same arid deserts, and it 
will readily be granted, that the affinity between these 
animals is not so fanciful as might, at first sight, be ima- 
gined. 
The family of Birds, of which the Ostrich forms the 
leading type, is remarkable for the wide dispersion of its 
several members; each of them vindicating, as it were, to 
itself, a distinct portion of the surface of the earth. The 
Ostrich, which is spread over nearly the whole of Africa, 
is scarcely known beyond the limits of the Arabian deserts; 
while the Cassowary occupies its place amid the luxuriant 
vegetation of the Indian Archipelago. The Emeu is con- 
fined to the great Australian Continent, and the Rhea to 
the southern extremity of the Western Hemisphere. And 
finally, returning homewards, we find the Bustard, the 
largest bird of this quarter of the globe, receding, it is 
true, in some particulars, from the typical form, but still 
fairly to be regarded as the representative of the family in 
Europe. Some species, however, belong to the same group 
with this latter bird, extend themselves over a considerable 
portion both of Africa and Asia. 
The principal external characters by which the birds 
above enumerated are connected together, consist in the 
absence of the hind-toe, of which not even a vestige re- 
main; in the length and power of their legs, which are 
completely bare of feathers; in the shortness of their wings, 
and their uselessness as organs of flight; in the length of 
their necks; and in their strong, blunt, flattened bills. The 
plumes of the more typical among them are distinguished 
by the want of cohesion between their barbs, a cohesion 
which, in other birds, is manifestly subservient to the 
purposes of flight, and which would, therefore, have been 
