284 A DESCRIPTION OF 
which it does with a strange jumping kind of motion, it 
raises its short wings, and holds them quivering over its 
back, where they seem to serve as a kind of sail to gather 
the wind and carry the bird onwards. The feathers of 
the back, in the cock, are coal black; in the hen only 
dusky, and so soft that they resemble a kind of wool. 
The tail is thick, bushy, and round ; in the cock whitish, 
in the hen dusky with white tops. These are the feathers 
so generally in requisition, to decorate the head-dress of 
ladies and the helmets of warriors. 
The Ostrich swallows anything that presents itself, lea- 
ther, glass, iron, bread, hair, &c. ; and the power of di- 
gestion in the stomach is so strong that even iron is very 
much affected by it. An Ostrich in the Zoological Gardens 
in the Regent's Park, was, however, killed by swallowing 
a lady's parasol. 
O'er the wild waste the stupid Ostrich strays, 
In devious search to pick her scanty meal, 
Whose fierce digestion gnaws the temper'd steel. 
MICKLE'S LUSIAD. 
They are polygamous birds ; one male being generally 
seen with two or three, and sometimes with five females. 
The female Ostrich, in the tropical regions, after de- 
positing her eggs in the sand, trusts them to be hatched by 
the heat of the climate, and leaves the young ones to pro- 
vide for themselves ; and in the book of Job there is a beau- 
tiful passage relating to this habit of the Ostrich, "which 
leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the 
dust; and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that 
the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against 
her young ones, as though they were not hers. Her labour 
is in vain ; without fear, because God hath deprived her 
of wisdom ; neither has he imparted to her understanding. 
What time she lifteth up her head on high, she scorneth 
the horse and his rider." In colder regions, however, the 
