6 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
ever is true : no bird lias a stronger affection for her 
young than the ostrich, and none watches her eggs with 
greater assiduity. It happens, indeed, in those hot cli- 
mates, that there is less necessity (or the continual incu- 
bation of the female ; and she more frequently leaves her 
eggs, which are in no fear of being chilled by the weather : 
but though she sometimes forsakes them by day, she 
always carefully broods over them by night; nor is it 
more true that they forsake their young after they are 
excluded the shell. On the contrary, the young ones are 
not even able to walk for several days after they are 
hatched. During this time the old ones are very assiduous 
in supplying them with grass, and very careful to defend 
them from danger : nay, they encounter every danger in 
their defence. 
The strength and size of the ostrich has suggested to 
men the experiment of using them as animals of burthen. 
The tyrant Firmius, who reigned in Egypt about the end 
of the third century, was frequently "carried by large 
ostriches. Moore, an English traveller, relates, that he 
had seen at Joar, in Africa, a man travelling on an ostrich. 
And Vallisnieri speaks of a young man, who exhibited 
himself upon one of these birds at Venice. In fine, M. 
Adanson saw at the factory at Podor, two ostriches, which 
were yet young, of which the stronger went at a pace 
which would have distanced the fleetest English race- 
horse, with two negroes on its back. Whether this bird 
could be broken and tamed so as to carry its rider with 
the same safety and docility as a horse is a different ques- 
tion ; and let it be remembered, that though the ostriches 
above-mentioned ran for a short time faster than a race- 
horse, there is no reason to believe they could hold out so 
long. 
From ancient writers we learn, that whole nations have 
acquired the name of Struthophagi (ostrich eaters) from 
the preference which they had manifested for the flesh of 
this bird. Apicius has recommended a peculiar sauce for 
the ostrich, which shews at least that it was eaten among 
the Romans, and at a single feast the Emperor Helioon” 
balus w as served with the brains of six hundred of these 
animals. Even at this period some of the savage nations 
of Africa hunt them not only for their plumage, but for 
their flesh also, which they consider as a dainty. They 
sometimes also breed these birds tame, to eat the young 
ones, of which the female is said to be the greatest deli- 
cacy ; and a single egg is said to be a sufficient entertain- 
