Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... (9) CHAPTER I. THE OSTRICH.--Struthio came/us,1 Linnjeus. The ostrich--Brief description of old and young--Its antiquity as a species--The ostrich in Scripture and in history--Assyrian and Egyptian inscriptions relating to it--Greek and Roman accounts of it--Ancient use of ostrich plumes as a head-dress--Whether more than one species of ostrich in Africa--Struthio australis of Gurney --Its supposed distinguishing characters--Difference in the eggs of the Northern and Southern race--The geographical distribution of the ostrich in ancient and modern times--The ostrich the "camelbird" of the ancients--The points of resemblance to a camel-- Brief anatomical details--The fleetness of the ostrich proverbial --Muscular mechanism of the leg--Length of stride and speed per hour--Its haunts and habits--Its cry--Food--Reproduction--Eggs --Native use of eggshells--Value of the feathers--Various methods of capture--Ostrich-meat--Its consumption in ancient and modern times --Ostrich feathers briefly alluded to--The consideration of ostrichfarming reserved. The ostrich capable of draught and burden. The existence of live ostriches in almost every zoological garden of note has doubtless rendered the species so familiar to our readers, that any detailed description of its external appearance seems unnecessary. Suffice it to say, that its chief characteristics are a small head with a short, broad, and depressed bill, a long and muscular neck, a robust body with wings incapable of flight, extremely muscular thighs and stout tarsi and feet, the latter having only two toes of unequal length directed anteriorly, the soles of which are furnished with pads or cushions especially adapted to the bird's mode of life. 1 XTpovSoKanrfKot of the Greeks; Struzzo and...