78 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY 
yellow. These are frequently formed into cups; and are 
used in 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 deliciae;” 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 Ostriches to be served up to his guests at a 
single supper. 
The flesh of these birds was among the unclean meats 
forbidden 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 Yopiscus, 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, soon 
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. This system of persecution was at 
length carried so far that 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 the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. 
CESTRUS 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 CEstrus, (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 CEstrus 
Equi, 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 larvae. The disease called 
staggers in sheep is likewise occasioned by an insect of 
this genus, ( CEstrus 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 larvae of some species of 
CEstrus. Larvae 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 
