ANECDOTES OF OSTRICHES.

“Givest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, or wings and feathers unto 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 wilde 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 depriveth her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding.”

Field’s Bible, 1653.

The alleged stupidity of the ostrich and indifference to its young, is, perhaps, the very oldest popular error in existence, and it is principally founded on the above passages in Job. It appears, however, that these passages are open to a different interpretation to that put upon them in the authorized versions of the Old Testament. The word which has been translated “leaveth” her eggs, in the sense of abandoning them, signifies in the original “deposits,” and tekhammem signifies actively that she heateth them, namely, by incubation, which is, indeed, the fact. In the sixteenth verse, the bird is said to be “hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers;” and the same want of affection is alluded to in the third verse of the fourth chapter of Lamentations, “the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness;” but, in fact, the idea is altogether erroneous. Recent observations show that no bird has a greater affection for its young than the ostrich, that the eggs are carefully watched and tended, and when the offspring have chipped their shells, and for some days are unable to run, they are regularly supplied with grass and water by the old birds, who are eager to defend them from harm. Thunberg especially mentions that he once rode past a place where a female was sitting on her nest, when the bird sprang up, and pursued him, evidently with a view of preventing his noticing her eggs or young. Every time he turned his horse toward her, she retreated ten or twelve paces, but as soon as he rode on again, she pursued him, till he had gone a considerable distance from the place where he started her.

The idea of the stupidity of the ostrich seems to have been universally entertained, being taken for granted without investigation. Job, as we have seen, alludes to it; and Pliny, writing from common report, says, “A wonder this is in their nature, that whatsoever they eat—and great devourers they be of all things without difference or choice, they concoct and digest it. But the veriest fools they be of all others; for as high as the rest of their body is, yet if they thrust their head and neck once into any shrub or bush, and get it hidden, they think then they are safe enough, and that no man seeth them.” Many a pretty nursery tale has been written from this, and many a wise saw founded on it; and yet the hiding of the head is, after all, a mere myth. Sparrman, when in South Africa, expressly inquired in those parts where ostriches most abound, and “never once heard mention made of the ostrich hiding its head when it finds it cannot make its escape.” The truth is, the ostrich does nothing of the sort; he tries to escape as well as he can, and continues his efforts, till knocked on the head by the hunter, or driven by him, as we shall presently see, to a place where he may be captured.

Conflicting accounts have been published respecting the whole process of breeding and incubation of the ostrich. Ælian states that as many as eighty eggs have been found in one nest,^[2] fifty or sixty have been certainly discovered, and the question has been whether these are the produce of one female or many?

The balance of opinion inclines to the belief that one male ostrich attaches himself to three or four females, and that all these deposit their eggs in one nest. This, according to Burckhardt, who carefully investigated the subject, is commonly made at the foot of some isolated hill, by the simple process of scratching a hole in the sand; the eggs are then placed close together, half buried in the sand, and a narrow trench is drawn round this to carry off any water. During the extreme heat of the day, the parent birds are instinctively aware that the warmth of the sun renders their attention unnecessary; but as soon as the shades of evening fall they each take their turn upon the nest. The cockbird, however, sits during the night, and Lichtenstein says that great numbers of the smaller beasts of prey, as jackals and wild cats, who will run any risk to procure the eggs, are found crushed to death around the nests; for the male rushes on them, and tramples them with his powerful feet until life is extinct.

The nests are never completely deserted, and the parent birds relieve each other in keeping watch on the summit of the neighboring hill. When the Arabs descry an ostrich thus engaged, they conclude that some eggs must be near; and on their approach, the old birds retire, although it is not uncommon, especially in South Africa, for them to show fight. Having discovered the nest, the Arabs dig a hole in the ground near it, in which they place a loaded gun, having a long burning match fastened to the touch-hole; the gun is pointed toward the nest, and is carefully covered over with sand and stones. The birds after a time return and resume their places on the eggs; the gun in due time explodes, and next morning the Arab is rewarded by finding one or perhaps both of the ostriches dead. This is the common mode of killing them practiced in the deserts of Northern Arabia.

It is said that some addled eggs are generally found outside the nest, and that the flies bred by their decomposition, furnish the callow young with food.

Such may be the case, and if so, it affords a striking illustration of that happy adaptation of means to ends visible throughout the whole economy of nature; but probably the primary reason for these being ejected from the nest is, that more eggs are laid than can be conveniently covered by the bird when sitting, and that she therefore instinctively throws out the surplus; thus at once getting rid of a useless superabundance, and providing a magazine of food for her future tender young.

Various are the purposes to which ostrich’s eggs are applied:—first, they are in great favor as a culinary luxury, and are much sought after by the captains of merchant vessels touching at the African ports, being purchased by them of the slave herdsmen, whose perquisites they generally are, for about sixpence each. A good sized egg weighs eleven ounces, is near seven inches in depth, and holds five pints and a quarter; consequently it is considered to afford a meal which will perfectly satisfy four hungry white men, or eight of the more moderate blacks. The yelk is very rich and luscious, and makes a most enviable omelette, but gourmands agree that the native mode of cooking them is perfect. The Hottentots bury the eggs in hot ashes, and through a small hole in the upper end, the contents are continually stirred until they acquire a certain consistence, which the sable cooks know by experience indicates the right moment for removing them from the ashes to the sackcloth, which covers the traveler’s primitive table. They are then eaten with biscuit, and washed down with copious draughts of corn brandy.

The eggs are frequently found to contain small oval pebble-like bodies, about the size of a marrowfat pea, of a pale yellow color, and exceedingly hard. Barrow found as many as twelve in one egg: and they are converted into buttons by the dandified Hottentots, and perhaps also the Boers.

The porcelain character of the shell and its shape, well adapt it for cups, and such vessels are frequently elegantly mounted in silver, and sometimes in chased gold. The ancient Egyptians used them in their places of worship, and, together with the plumes, insisted on their forming part of the tribute paid by conquered countries where ostriches abounded. They were probably suspended in the temples, as they still are in the Coptic churches, the Copts regarding them as emblems of watchfulness.

When the allied sovereigns were in London, in the days when the Prince Regent was in full possession of his powers of entertainment, and we may add of appetite, a marvelous and unaccountable evaporation of oil took place nightly in the murky lamps, which then served to make darkness visible. In vain were the lamps replenished—they would go out, and the glass receptacles were invariably found empty. The contractor was in despair; the churchwardens took the matter up, and the minds of the parishioners were as gloomy as their streets. One night, however, the mystery was unexpectedly cleared up. A worthy old watchman, or “Charley,” as the class was familiarly called, comfortably wrapped in his sixteen-caped great coat, feeling himself tired with his exertions in informing the sleeping world that it was “past ten o’clock and a cloudy night,” sat down on a step in the shade to take five-and-twenty winks, but just as he was composing his thoughts previous to dropping off, he was startled by seeing a strangely dressed, bearded figure approach a lamp, and after a hasty look round, actively swarm up the post, take out the lamp, snuff the wick with his fingers, and drink the oil! Here was a discovery! Away posted the guardian of the night and reported what he had seen, but the inspector roundly told him that he must have been either drunk or asleep, for he shrewdly remarked, “’Taint likely that them beggars of furriners would go a-drinking ile when they could get brown stout or Tipper Hale.” Notwithstanding the utter improbability of the thing, a watch was set, and, sure enough, it turned out that the mysterious strangers were the Cossacks, who nightly indulged in deep libations of train-oil at the parish expense.

A not less puzzling disappearance of oil took place some years ago from the lamps in a certain Eastern church, and so pertinaciously did the lamps go out, that the priests felt a supernatural influence, and apprehending something terrible, gave orders for a general penance and scourging of backs. The minds as well as the backs of the obedient congregation were, however, infinitely relieved by the accidental discovery (by a dyspeptic priest who could not sleep through heartburn) that the extinguishing of the lamps was attributable to natural and not, as feared, to supernatural causes. A colony of rats had taken up their quarters in the church, and following the example of the gallant Captain Dalgetty, looked at once to the procuring of “provend.” An enterprising member of one of the foraging parties scrambling down a rope by which one of the lamps was suspended, was fortunate enough to hit upon some uncommonly nice oil. The news of this glorious discovery spread, and all the rats chorussed,

“Black rats and white, brown rats and gray

Scramble down the lamp-rope, ye that scramble may.”

Accordingly, the colony flocked to these oleaginous mines with as much eagerness as another description of colonists are now flocking to mines of gold. The result has been described, but in the end the rats were no match for the priests, who, as soon as the rogues were found out, lighted upon the expedient of passing each of the ropes through an ostrich egg. A most effectual and tantalizing barrier was now opposed to the predatory excursions of our furry friends. In vain they sniffed and squeaked; each, as he attempted “to round the cape,” slid off the smooth egg and was smashed on the stones beneath.

The ostrich is a very prudent, wary bird, for which reason the quaggas generally attach themselves instinctively to a troop of these birds, trusting implicitly to their caution for the discovery of danger. This alliance was remarked by Xenophon, who says, “the country was a plain throughout, as even as the sea, and full of wormwood. Of wild creatures the most numerous were wild asses, (quaggas,) and not a few ostriches, besides bustards and roe-deer, (gazelles,) which our horsemen sometimes chased!”^[3]

This bird was not sacred among the ancient Egyptians, but there is reason to believe that it was so with the Assyrians. It has not only been found as an ornament on the robes of figures in the most ancient edifices at Nimroud, but it was frequently introduced on Babylonian and Assyrian cylinders, always accompanied by the emblematical flower. The Romans appear to have regarded it as a delicacy, for Apicius left a receipt for a particular sauce for dressing it; and it is recorded of Heliogabalus, that he had the brains of six hundred of these birds served up as a dish at one of his feasts. But in trencher feats the pseudo-emperor Formius far outdid either, as it is related by Vopiscus, that be devoured a whole ostrich to his own share at a single sitting.

It was broadly asserted by Aristotle, that the ostrich was partly bird and partly quadruped; and by Pliny, that it might almost be said to belong to the class of beasts; ridiculous as such assertions might be supposed, they were not altogether without foundation according to the knowledge of the times. The common name by which the ostrich was designated by the Greeks and Romans, and also by the nations of the East, was the camel bird. Indeed, the total want of feathers on its long and very powerful legs, and the division of the feet into two toes only, connected at their base by a membrane, are very similar to the legs and long, divided hoof of the camel: nor does the resemblance cease here, for there is another singularity in their external conformation, which affords a still more remarkable coincidence. Both camel and ostrich are furnished with hard, callous protuberances 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 their knees, then applying the anterior callosity, and lastly the posterior, to the ground. When to this we add the patience of thirst of both, and their inhabiting the same arid deserts, the two may well be compared with each other.

The ostrich is altogether destitute of the power of flight, and accordingly the wings are reduced to a very low state of development, merely sufficient, in fact, to aid it when running at speed. The sharp keel of the breast-bone, which, in birds of rapid flight, affords an extensive surface for the attachment of the muscles moving the wings, is not required, and the surface of the bone is therefore flat, like that of a quadruped, but the muscles of the legs are of extraordinary magnitude.

The family of birds, of which the ostrich forms the leading type, is remarkable for the wide dispersion of its various members: the ostrich itself spreads over nearly the whole of the burning deserts of Africa—the Cassowary represents it amid the luxuriant vegetation of the Indian Archipelago. The Dinornis—chief of birds—formerly towered among the ferns of New Zealand, where the small Apteryx now holds its place; and the huge Æpyornis strode along the forest of Madagascar. The Emu is confined to the great Australian continent, and the Rhea to the southern extremity of the western hemisphere; whilst nearer home we find the class represented by the Bustard, which—until within a few years—still lingered upon the least frequented downs and plains of England.

With the Arabs of the desert, the chase of the ostrich is the most attractive, and eagerly sought, of the many aristocratic diversions in which they indulge; and we are indebted to General Daumas for a highly interesting account of their proceedings. The first point attended to, is a special preparation of their horses. Seven or eight days before the intended hunt, they are entirely deprived of straw and grass, and fed on barley only. They are only allowed to drink once a-day, and that at sunset—the time when the water begins to freshen: at that time also they are washed. They take long, daily exercises, and are occasionally galloped; at which time care is taken that the harness is right, and suited to the chase of the ostrich. “After seven or eight days,” says the Arab, “the stomach of the horse disappears, while the chest, the breast, and the croup remain in flesh: the animal is then fit to endure fatigue.” They call this training techaha. The harness used for the purpose in question is lighter than ordinary, especially the stirrups and saddle, and the martingale is removed. The bridle, too, undergoes many metamorphoses: the mountings and the earflaps are taken away, as too heavy. The bit is made of a camel-rope, without a throat band, and the frontlet is also of cord, and the reins—though strong—are very light. The period most favorable for ostrich hunting is that of the great heat: the higher the temperature, the less is the ostrich able to defend himself. The Arabs describe the precise time as that, when a man stands upright, his shadow has the length only of the sole of his foot.

Each horseman is accompanied by a servant called zemmal, mounted on a camel, carrying four goat-skins filled with water, barley for the horse, wheat-flour for the rider, some dates, a kettle to cook the food, and every thing which can possibly be required for the repair of the harness. The horseman contents himself with a linen vest and trousers, and covers his neck and ears with a light material called havuli, tied with a strip of camel’s hide: his feet are protected with sandals, and his legs with light gaiters called trabag. He is armed with neither gun nor pistol, his only weapon being a wild olive or tamarind stick, five or six feet long, with a heavy knob at one end.

Before starting, the hunters ascertain where a large number of ostriches are to be found. These birds are generally met with in places where there is much grass, and where rain has recently fallen. The Arabs say, that where the ostrich sees the light shine, and barley getting ready, wherever it may be, thither she runs, regardless of distance, and ten days march is nothing to her; and it has passed into a proverb in the desert, that a man skillful in the care of flocks, and in finding pasturage, that he is like the ostrich, where he sees the light, there he goes.

The hunters start in the morning. After one or two days’ journey, when they have arrived near the spot pointed out, and they begin to perceive traces of their game, they halt and camp. The next day, two intelligent slaves, almost entirely stripped, are sent to reconnoitre; they each carry a goat-skin at their side, and a little bread: they walk until they meet with the ostriches, which are generally found in elevated places. As soon as the game is in view, one lies down to watch, the other returns to convey the information. The ostriches are found in troops, comprising sometimes as many as sixty; but at the pairing time, they are more scattered, three or four couple only remaining together.

The horsemen, guided by the scout, travel gently toward the birds: the nearer they approach the spot the greater is their caution, and when they reach the last ridge which conceals them from the sight of their game, they dismount, and two creep forward to ascertain if they are still there. Should such be the case, a moderate quantity of water is given to the horses, the baggage is left, and each man mounts, carrying at his side a chebouta, or goat-skin. The servants and camels follow the track of the horsemen, carrying with them only a little corn and water.

The exact position of the horses being known, the plans are arranged: the horsemen divide and form a circle round the game at such a distance as not to be seen. The servants wait where the horsemen have separated, and as soon as they see them at their posts, they walk right before them: the ostriches fly, but are met by the hunters, who do nothing at first but drive them back into the circle; thus their strength is exhausted by being made to continually run round in the ring. At the first signs of fatigue in the birds, the horsemen dash in—presently the flock separates; the exhausted birds are seen to open their wings—which is a sign of great exhaustion—the horsemen, certain of their prey, now repress their horses: each hunter selects his ostrich, runs it down, and finishes it by a blow on the head with the stick above mentioned. The moment the bird falls, the man jumps off his horse, and cuts her throat, taking care to hold the neck at such a distance from the body, as not to soil the plumage of the wings. The male bird, whilst dying, utters loud moans, but the female dies in silence.

When the ostrich is on the point of being overtaken by the hunter, she is so fatigued that—if he does not wish to kill her—she can easily be driven with the stick to the neighborhood of the camels. Immediately after the birds have been bled to death, they are carefully skinned, so that the feathers may not be injured, and the skin is then stretched upon a tree, or on a horse, and salt rubbed well into it. A fire is lit, and the fat of the birds is boiled for a long time in kettles; when very liquid, it is poured into a sort of bottle, made of the skin of the thigh and leg down to the foot, strongly fastened at the bottom; the fat of one bird is usually sufficient to fill two of these legs—it is said that in any other vessel the fat would spoil. When, however, the bird is breeding, she is extremely lean, and is then hunted only for the sake of her feathers. After these arrangements are completed, the flesh is eaten by the hunters, who season it well with pepper and flour.

Whilst these proceedings are in progress, the horses are carefully tended, watered, and fed with corn, and the party remain quiet during forty-eight hours, to give their animals rest; after that, they either return to their encampment, or embark in new enterprises.

The fat of the ostrich is used in the preparation of the favorite dish kouskousson, and is often eaten with bread. It is also used medicinally. In cases of fever, for instance, the Arabs make a paste with it and bread-crumb, which is given to the patient, who must not drink any thing during the whole day. In rheumatism, and in renal diseases, the painful parts are rubbed with the grease until it disappears. The patient then lies down in the scorching sand, his head being carefully covered, and a profuse perspiration ensuing, the cure is often complete. In bilious attacks, the fat is melted, salted, and taken in draughts, with powerful effect, the patient even becoming extremely thin. The Arab doctors say, “the patient parts with every thing in his body that is bad, gains a frame of iron, and acquires excellent eyesight.”

Ostrich fat is sold in the markets, and in the tents of the great a store is kept to give away to the poor—in value, one pot of this fat is equivalent to three pots of butter. The feathers of the ostrich are sold at the ksours, at Tougartet: at the time of the purchase of grain, the ostrich-skins are bought, that of a male selling for four or five douros, that of a female from eight to fourteen shillings. Formerly, the only use made in the Sahara of the plumes was to decorate the tops of tents.

To the Arab, the chase of the ostrich has a double attraction—pleasure and profit: the price obtained for the skins well compensates for the expenses. Not only do the rich enjoy the pursuit, but the poor, who know how to set about it, are permitted to participate in it also. The usual plan is, for a poor Arab to arrange with one who is opulent for the loan of his camel, horse harness, and two-thirds of all the necessary provisions. The borrower furnishes himself the remaining third, and the produce of the chase is divided in the same proportions.

The use of ostrich-fat in medicine dates back to a very remote period: and Pliny relates that, on a certain occasion, when Cato—surnamed Uticensis—was accused of selling poison, because “he held cantharides at three-score sesterces a pound, at the same time ostrich-grease was sold for eighty sesterces the pound; and, in truth, it is much better for any use it shall be put unto than goose-grease.”

In the quaint account of “The World encompassed by Sir Francis Drake,” there is a curious description of the mode of hunting ostriches, as practiced in those days at the Cape. The history is written by “Mr. Francis Fletcher, preacher in this employment,” and he thus begins:

“Ever since Almighty God commanded Adam to subdue the earth, there hath not wanted in all ages some heroic spirits, which—in obedience to that high mandate—either from manifest reason alluring them, or by some secret instinct enforcing them thereunto, have expended their wealth, employed their times, and adventured their persons to find out the true circuit of the world.” The worthy chaplain being safely arrived at the Cape, goes on to say, “In this place, the people being removed up into the country, belike for fear of our coming, we found near unto the rocks, in houses made for that purpose, great store of ostriches, at least to the number of fifty, with much other fowl; some dried, and some in drying, for their provision, as it seemed, to carry with them to the place of their dwellings. The ostriches legs were in bigness equal to reasonable legs of mutton: they cannot fly at all; but they run so swiftly, and take so long strides, that it is not possible for a man in running by any means to take them, neither yet to come so nigh them as to have any shot at them with bow or piece. Whereof our men had often proof on other parts of that coast, for all the country is full of them. We found there the tools or instruments which the people use in taking them. Amongst other means which they use in betraying of these ostriches, they have a great and large plume of feathers, orderly compact together upon the end of a staff; in the fore-part bearing the likeness of the head, neck, and bulk of an ostrich, and in the hinder part spreading itself out very large, sufficient being holden before him to hide the most part of the body of a man. With this it seemeth they stalk, driving them into some strait or neck of land close to the sea-side; where—spreading long and strong nets, with their dogs, which they have in readiness at all times—they overthrow them, and make a common quarry.”

The ostrich, like many other of the feathered tribe, has a great deal of self-conceit. On fine sunny days, a tame bird may be seen strutting backward and forward with great majesty, fanning itself with its quivering, expanded wings, and at every turn seeming to admire its grace, and the elegance of its shadow. Dr. Shaw says that, though these birds appear tame and tractable to persons well-known to them, they are often very fierce and violent toward strangers, whom they would not only endeavor to push down by running furiously against them, but they would peck at them with their beaks, and strike with their feet; and so violent is the blow that can be given, that the Doctor saw a person whose abdomen had been ripped completely open by a stroke from the claw of an ostrich.

The cry of the ostrich has been compared to the voice of a lion; but when fighting they sometimes make a fierce, angry, and hissing noise, with their throats inflated, and their mouths open. Dr. Shaw often heard them groan, as if in the greatest agonies, a peculiarity alluded to in Micah, i. 8., where it is said, “I will make a mourning like the jaanah (ostrich);” though the word has been improperly translated owl.

A remarkable illustration of the strength of the ostrich is afforded by an incident mentioned by Adanson, which took place during his residence at Podor, a French factory on the southern bank of the river Niger. “Two ostriches, which had been about two years in the factory, and although young, were nearly of their full size, were so tame that two little blacks mounted both together on the back of the largest. No sooner did he feel their weight, than he began to run as fast as possible, and carried them several times round the village, as it was impossible to stop him otherwise than by obstructing his passage. This sight pleased me so much, that I ordered it to be repeated, and to try their strength, directed a full grown negro to mount the smallest, and two others the largest. This burden did not seem at all disproportioned to their strength. At first, they went a tolerably sharp trot, but when they became heated a little, they expanded their wings, as though to catch the wind, and moved with such fleetness, that they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. Most people have, one time or another, seen a partridge run, and consequently must know that there is no man whatever able to keep up with it; and it is easy to imagine that if this bird had a longer step, its speed would be considerably augmented. The ostrich moves like the partridge, with this advantage; and I am satisfied that those I am speaking of, would have distanced the fleetest race-horses that were ever bred in England. It is true, they would not hold out so long as a horse, but they would undoubtedly be able to go over the space in less time. I have frequently beheld this sight, which is capable of giving one an idea of the prodigious strength of an ostrich, and of showing what use it might be of, had we but the method of breaking and managing it, as we do a horse.”

We are much mistaken if there was not an exhibition of ostrich races in a circus at Paris about two years ago; the birds being ridden by boys, who managed their feathered steeds with great dexterity.

To have the stomach of an ostrich has become proverbial, and with good reason; for this bird stands enviably forward in respect to its wonderful powers of digestion, which are scarcely inferior to its voracity. Its natural food consists entirely of vegetable substances, especially grain; and the ostrich is a most destructive enemy to the crops of the African farmers. But its sense of taste is so obtuse, that scraps of leather, old nails, bits of tin, buttons, keys, coins, and pebbles, are devoured with equal relish; in fact, nothing comes amiss. But in this it doubtless follows an instinct, for these hard bodies assist, like the gravel in the crops of our domestic poultry, in grinding down and preparing for digestion its ordinary food. Its fondness for iron was well-known to our forefathers, and we find Shakspeare makes Jack Cade say to Iden, in the “Second Part of Henry VI.,”

“But I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin.”

An earlier writer, John Skelton, who was poet laureate to Henry the Seventh, alludes to an idea then prevalent, that the ostrich swallowed iron for the same purpose that ices are taken in these degenerate days. The lines are taken from his poem “The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe,”

“The estryge that wyll eate

An horshowe so great

In the stede of meate,

Such feruent heat

His stomake doth freat,

He can not well fly

Nor synge tunably.”

But there was another and far less selfish reason ascribed for the partiality of these birds to iron—a reason so philanthropic, indeed, that it puts mankind to the blush; for there are few, indeed, who would convert their interiors into a marine-store shop for the benefit of their fellow creatures. In a singular book by Thomas Scott, published in 1616, a merchant meets with an ostrich in the desert, in the act of swallowing a heavy meal of iron, and gazing on him with astonishment, inquires,

“‘What nourishment can from these mettals grow?’

The ostrich answers: ‘Sir, I do not eate

This iron, as you think I do, for meate;

I only keep it, lay it up in store,

To helpe my needy friends the friendlesse poore,

I often meete (as farre and neere I goe)

Many a foundred horse that wants a shoe,

Serving a master that is monylesse,

Such I relieve and helpe in their distresse.’”

Philomythie, etc.

There was found by Cuvier, in the stomach of an ostrich that died at Paris, nearly a pound weight of stones, bits of iron and copper, and pieces of money worn down by constant attrition against each other, as well as by the action of the stomach itself. In the stomach of one of these birds which belonged to the Menagerie of George the Fourth, there were contained some pieces of wood of considerable size, several large nails, and a hen’s egg entire and uninjured, perhaps taken as a delicacy from its appetite becoming capricious. In the stomach of another, beside several large cabbage-stalks, there were masses of bricks of the size of a man’s fist. Sparrman relates that he saw ostriches at the Cape so tame that they went loose to and from the farm, but they were so voracious as to swallow chickens whole, and trample hens to death, that they might tear them in pieces afterward and devour them; and one great barrel of a bird was obliged to be killed on account of an awkward habit he had acquired of trampling sheep to death. But perhaps the most striking proof of the prowess of an ostrich in the eating way, is that afforded by Dr. Shaw, who saw one swallow bullet after bullet as fast as they were pitched, scorching hot from the mould.

In a very amusing article in the eighty-eighth number of “Household Words,” there are mentioned some of the “wonderful swallows” of an ostrich, which was not long since in the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park. A carpenter was one day at work in a stable, the side of which was open to a corner of the cage of the ostrich. A pretty nursery maid chanced to pass that way, and the carpenter having engaged her in conversation, ceased his work for a while, and stood smiling and chatting with his hands behind him, in which he held a gimlet which he had been using. His back was toward the cage. The ostrich observed the gimlet, saw that it was nice, and darting forth his head and long neck between the bars, snapped it out of the carpenter’s hands. The man turned hastily round, but before he could make an effort to regain his gimlet, the ostrich gave a toss with his head, the gimlet disappeared, his neck made a stiff arch for a moment, and the gimlet was safely down.

But the performances of the bird were not to cease with this feat; his reputation was to have other facts to rest upon. Not long after, he saw a young gentleman standing near his cage, displaying to a friend a knife which he had just purchased—it was a many-bladed knife. Directly the ostrich caught sight of this, he knew that it must be very good indeed. Watching his opportunity, he made a sudden dart upon it, and caught it in his beak. The gentleman made a rush at the bars of the cage, but the ostrich, taking a long stride back, stood out of reach with an insolent straddle in the middle of his cage, and with one jerk of his neck bolted the delicious curiosity.

The keepers watched the bird, and examined his cage very narrowly for a long time; but no traces of his preposterous fancies were ever restored to sight, neither did the ostrich appear in any degree incommoded.

Three months after these performances, the ostrich, from some unknown cause or other, got into a bad state of mind with the bars of his cage, and in a contest which ensued, he broke his back. His death speedily followed, and a post mortem examination was speedily made, but no trace whatever either of the gimlet or the many-bladed knife, was discovered in any part of his wonderful interior.

One of the predecessors of this bird at the Gardens had the ill-luck to suffer from his taste for such delicacies as gimlets and many-bladed knives, for he had such difficulty in bolting something of the sort, that his neck never recovered the unnatural curve it then acquired. His lady mate regarding this as an outward and visible sign of effeminacy unworthy of an ostrich, never ceased from that moment to show her contempt by teasing and worrying him in every possible way, and this system of hen-pecking persecution was carried to such an extent, that it was found necessary to separate the pair, without consulting the authorities of Doctors’ Commons.

Far different was the behavior of a gallant male in the Jardin des Plantes. He with his spouse had long lived in connubial felicity, when, unfortunately, the skylight over their heads having been broken, a triangular piece of glass fell, and was instantly snapped up by the female, who regarded it as an acceptable offering. Soon after she was taken ill, and died in great agony. Her body being opened, the throat and stomach were found dreadfully lacerated by the sharp corners of the glass. But now comes the pathetic portion of the tale. From the moment that he found himself bereft of his mate, the survivor had no rest. Day and night the poor bird was incessantly searching for her, and gradually wasted away. He was removed from the spot, in the hope that in new scenes his grief would be forgotten; but no! the arrow had entered into his soul; his fruitless, unavailing search after his lost one still continued, so long as strength enabled him to pursue it, and then, literally constant unto death, he laid himself down and died.

The feathers of the ostrich, which play such an important part in adorning the persons of the living, and decorating the funereal processions of the dead, are distinguished in the trade of the plumassier by several qualities; those of the male are the whitest and most beautiful, and the feathers of the back, and above the wings, hold the first place; next those of the wings, and lastly those of the tail. The down, varying in length from four to fourteen inches, is merely the feathers of the other parts of the body, and is black in the males, gray in the females. The finest white feathers of the female have always their ends a little grayish, which lessens their lustre and lowers their price. The feathers are imported from Algiers, Tunis, Alexandria, Madagascar, and Senegal; the first obtaining the highest price, the last the lowest.

The first thing is to scour the feathers, which is done by tying them in bundles, and rubbing them well with the hand in a lather of soap and water, after which they are rinsed in clean hot water. They are then bleached by washing first with Spanish white, then are passed quickly through a weak solution of indigo, and the process is completed by exposing them to the fumes of sulphur, after which they are hung upon cords to dry. As much of the beauty of ostrich feathers depends upon their graceful pliability, they generally require to be scraped with glass, to render them pliant; and the curly form so admired, is given by drawing the edge of a blunt knife over the filaments. They are then dyed. The process of dying black needs no preparation; but for receiving the other colors it is necessary that they should be bleached by exposure to the sun and dew; and a bleaching ground presents a very singular appearance, seeming for all the world as if it was bearing a luxuriant crop of feathers, ready to be mown; for each feather is stuck singly in the grass, and left for fifteen days, after which it is ready to receive the most delicate shades of pink or other color.

By the natives the feathers are little used; but a curious statement is made by Captain Lyons, to the effect that at all the towns of Sockna, Hoon, and Wadan, it is customary to keep ostriches tame in stables, and to take three cuttings of their feathers every two years; and he adds, that the greater part of the fine feathers sent to Europe are from tame birds; as the plumage of the wild is generally so ragged and torn, that not above half a dozen perfect white feathers can be found in each. We have not been able, however, to verify this assertion.

To all Englishmen the triad of ostrich feathers has a peculiar charm as the especial crest of the Prince of Wales. Romantic is the history connected with this well-known badge, which in its adoption was sorely stained with blood; for at the battle of Cressy no quarter was given, and nearly forty thousand good men and true, of the best blood of France, then yielded up their lives. But of all the sad incidents that occurred that day, there was none more touching than that which marked the closing scene of the life of the brave old King of Bohemia, whose crest was the ostrich plume. Barnes, in his “History of Edward the Third,” thus describes it:—“And first the Marquis Charles, Elect Emperor, resisted the Prince with great courage, but his banner was beaten to the ground, his men slain miserably about him, and himself wounded in three places of his body; wherefore, though not without much difficulty, he turned his horse and rode out of the field, having cast away his coat armor that he might not be known. The meanwhile his father, John, King of Bohemia, who was son to the noble Emperor, Henry of Luxemburgh, although he was nearly blind with age, when he understood how the day was like to go, asked his captains what had become of the Lord Charles his son? They told him that they knew not, but that they supposed him somewhere in the heat of action. Then the good old King, resolving by no means to disgrace his former victories and cancel the glory of his youth by a degenerous old age, said unto them, ‘Gentlemen, you are my men, my companions and friends in this expedition. I only now desire this last piece of service from you—that you would bring me forward so near to these Englishmen, that I may deal among them one good stroke with my sword.’ They all said they would obey him to the death; and lest by any extremity they should be separated from him, they all with one consent tied the reins of their horses one to another, and so attended their royal master into battle. There this valiant old hero had his desire, and came boldly up to the Prince of Wales, and gave more than one, or four or five good strokes, and fought courageously, as also did all his lords and others about him. But they engaged themselves so far that there they were all slain, and the next day found dead about the body of their king, and their horses’ bridles tied together.

“Then were the arms of that noble king (being the ostrich feathers, with the motto ‘Ich Dien,’ signifying ‘I serve,’) taken and won by the Prince of Wales, in whose memory they have ever since been called the Prince’s Arms.”

It appears, however, that the same device had been previously worn by a former sovereign, “For,” says Guillim, in his “Display of Heraldry,” “the ostrich feathers in plume were sometimes also the device of King Stephen, who gave them with this word, ‘Vi nulla Invertitui ordo: No force alters their fashion;’ alluding to the fold and fall of the feather; which howsoever the wind may shake it cannot disorder it; as likewise is the condition of kings and kingdoms well established.”

The death of the blind old King of Bohemia recalls to mind an incident which occurred at the battle of Waterloo, and which displays, in a remarkable degree, chivalric bearing. During the heat and fury of the fight, a very distinguished British cavalry officer, who had lost his right arm in one of the Peninsular actions, led on a dragoon regiment to the charge. In the melée which followed, he found himself opposed to a powerful French officer, who raised his sword to hew him down; but suddenly perceiving the helplessness of his antagonist, who made shift to manage his sword with his left hand, holding the bridle between his teeth—the gallant Frenchman suddenly paused, brought his sword to the “salute,” bowed, and galloped on to meet some foe more worthy of his prowess. The English officer, who survived the battle, made great exertions to discover who the French officer was, but was never able to obtain the slightest clue: probably a sabre or a bullet, less merciful than he, had stretched him on the field.

The great swiftness of the ostrich depends not merely upon the length and strength of its legs, or the aid it receives from its plumed wings, but we must take into consideration, in addition, the fact that its bones, like those of other birds, are permeated by air, and are thus lighter than those of animals. The feathers, too, are peculiar; instead of the shaft being, as is commonly the case, unsymmetrically placed as regards the barbs, it is exactly in the middle, and the barbules are long and loose. The accessory plume, too, is wanting in the ostrich. In the emu, on the contrary, the accessory plume equals the original feather, so that the quill supports two shafts; and in the cassowary, besides the double feather, there is also a second accessory plume, so that the quill supports three distinct shafts and vanes.

To Mr. Charles Darwin ornithologists are indebted for the knowledge of the fact, that there are two distinct species of ostrich inhabiting South America. The first is the Rhea Americana, a well-known species abounding over the plains of Northern Patagonia and the Provinces of La Plata. It has not crossed the Cordillera, but has been seen within the first range of mountains on the Uspallata plain, elevated between six and seven thousand feet. These birds, though generally feeding on vegetable matter, have been seen to go in groups of three and four to the extensive mud-banks, which are then dry, at Bahia Blanca, for the purpose of catching small fish, and they will readily take to the water. Mr. King saw ostriches on several occasions swimming from island to island at Port Valdes, in Patagonia, and the Bay of San Blas. When swimming very little of their bodies appear above water; their progress is slow, and their necks are extended forward. On two occasions Mr. Darwin saw ostriches swimming across the Santa Cruz River, where it was about four hundred yards broad and the stream rapid. Mr. Darwin went out hunting one day at Bahia Blanca, the men riding in a crescent, each about a quarter of a mile apart from the other. A fine male ostrich being turned by the headmost riders, tried to escape on one side. The Guachos pursued at a reckless pace, twisting their horses about with the most admirable command, and each man whirling the “bolas,” or balls, round his head. At length the foremost threw them revolving through the air; in an instant the ostrich rolled over and over, its legs fairly lashed together by the thong. These balls can be thrown from on horseback to the distance of eighty yards, and a striking proof of their effect was afforded at the Falkland Islands, when the Spaniards murdered all the English, and some of their own countrymen also. A young Spaniard was running away, when a great tall Indian, Luciano by name, came at full gallop after him, shouting to him to stop, and saying that he only wanted to speak to him. The Spaniard distrusting him continued his flight, and just as he was on the point of reaching the boat, Luciano threw the balls. They struck him on the legs with such a jerk as to throw him down and render him for some time insensible. After Luciano had had his talk, the man was allowed to escape, but his legs were marked with great wales, as if he had been flogged with a heavy whip.

The second species, to which the name of Rhea Darwinii has been applied by Mr. Gould, takes the place of the former species—Rhea Americana, in Southern Patagonia, the part about Rio Negro being neutral ground. The first notice Mr. Darwin had of this species was in accidentally hearing the Guachos talking of a very rare bird, the Avestruz Petise; afterward, when among the Patagonian Indians in the Straits of Magellan, Mr. Darwin found a half-bred Indian who had lived some years with this tribe, but had been born in the Northern Provinces. On being asked if he had ever heard of the Avestruz Petise, he answered by saying, “Why there are none others in these Southern Countries;” and afterward many of these birds were seen; their distinctive characters being that they are light brown, in place of gray, and the bird altogether smaller than the Rhea Americana.

In the year of grace, 1839, there was brought from New Zealand, by Mr. Rule, a most hopeless-looking osseous fragment, just the middle of a thigh-bone, without a scrap of either end remaining. This, which most persons would have regarded with despair, was placed in the hands of the great authority in such matters, with a request that he would state to what creature it had belonged.

After a careful examination, Professor Owen, in a paper read before the Zoological Society, on the 12th of November, 1839, (and which paper is one of the most remarkable examples of acute inductive reasoning ever published,) announced that, “So far as my skill in interpreting an osseous fragment may be credited, I am willing to risk the reputation for it on the statement that there has existed, if there does not now exist, in New Zealand, a Struthious bird, nearly, if not quite equal in size to the ostrich.”

This announcement created not a little stir in the scientific world; but as three years passed away without any confirmation of the opinion, certain wise men looked extra wise, and pronounced that the Professor for once “had made a mistake.” But a triumphant vindication was at hand, even from so unpromising a spot as Poverty Bay, in the shape of two goodly boxes crammed full of bones, which looked as if they were the remains of some ante-diluvial pic-nic, where the giants of those days had been picking the scaffolding of the contents of a Brobdignagian pie; and the curiosity connected with the said bones was heightened by a delightfully mysterious history communicated with them by the gentleman from whom they were sent. For the respectable natives, speaking, of course, by the card, had informed him that the bones belonged to a family of extraordinary monsters, one of whom was still in existence in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa, and that, like the lady in the fairy tales, this creature was jealously guarded by a sort of huge lizard or dragon. Mr. Williams treated these stories as idle fables, but some time after was a little staggered by a sort of corroboration of the tale; for happening to speak to an American about these bones, he was told by him that the bird was still in existence in the neighborhood of Cloudy Bay, in Cook’s Straits, and that the natives there had mentioned to an Englishman of a whaling party, that there was a bird of extraordinary size, to be seen only at night, on the side of a hill near there. Our countryman, with a companion and a native guide, went to the spot on murderous thoughts intent, and after waiting some time, they saw the creature at a little distance, towering to the height of something like sixteen feet. One of the men was said to have proposed to go near and take a shot at it, but the other was so utterly terrified that they contented themselves with looking; and after a time, the monster took the alarm, and, in almost seven-league boots, strode away up the side of the mountain.

Professor Owen soon determined that the bones sent to him were portions of a gigantic bird allied to the ostrich, and the publication of this announcement, stimulating inquiry in New Zealand, box after box, full of interesting specimens, found their way to the College of Surgeons, and proved the existence, at no very remote period in the island of New Zealand, of at least six different species of Dinornis (as the bird has been named,) the largest certainly not less than ten feet in height; and in the eloquent words of the Professor, “without giving the rein to a too exuberant fancy, we may take a retrospective glance at the scene of a fair island, offering, by the will of a bountiful Providence, a well-spread table to a race of animated beings peculiarly adapted to enjoy it; and we may recall the time when the several species of Dinornis ranged the lords of its soil—the highest living forms upon that part of the earth. No terrestrial mammal was there to contest this sovereignty with the feathered bipeds before the arrival of man.”

But what has become of all these huge birds, for we no longer hear of able seamen or nervous natives being scared by their apparitions? In all probability they gradually became exterminated by the earliest colonists who set foot on this lovely portion of the globe. Conspicuous as to size, heavy in form, stupid, and unprovided with means of escape or defense, the Dinornis would easily fall a victim to the destructive arts of man; and although strong hopes to the contrary have been entertained, there is good reason to suppose that all the varieties of the race have been extinct for very many years; consequently the mysterious inhabitant of the cave, and the apparition that strode up the mountain-side, were doubtless legends that had descended from generation to generation from the distant ancestors of the aborigines of the island. There is to be seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a considerable portion of the skeleton of a Dinornis, mounted by the side of that of a large ostrich, above which it towers in the same proportion as its neighbor O’Brien, the Irish giant, towers above all ordinary men.

Gigantic though these New Zealand birds must have been, they were fully equalled in size by a race of birds coeval with them in the island of Madagascar; and it is remarkable that our chief knowledge of the existence of these is derived from that most fragile and perishable of their products—their eggs.

In 1850, M. Abadie, captain of a French merchantman, was at Madagascar, and observed one day, in the hands of a native, an egg of enormous size, perforated at one extremity, and used as a basin for various domestic purposes. His curiosity was excited, and he caused search to be made, which led to the discovery of a second egg of nearly similar size, which was found perfectly entire in the bed of a torrent, among the débris of a land slip; and soon after a third egg was found in alluvia of recent formation, all being in the condition termed sub-fossil or partially fossilized. These precious remains were transmitted to Paris, but so carelessly packed, that one was found on their arrival broken to atoms; the other two being happily sound. Casts of these marvelous eggs have been transmitted to Professor Owen, and we can only compare them to huge conoidal cannon-shot. In fact, in these days of cylindrico-conoidal bullets, they might well pass for such a projectile adapted for a sixty-eight pounder. Some idea of their dimensions may be formed from the following facts. The dimensions of the most oval egg (for they differ somewhat in form) are as nearly as possible thirteen and a half inches in length by nine in diameter; and to fill it would require the contents of six ostrich eggs, seventeen of the emu, one hundred and forty-eight of the hen, or fifty thousand of the humming-bird! Various fragments of bones were transmitted to Paris with the eggs, and the comparative anatomists have arrived at the conclusion, that the bird approached the ostrich in its main characteristics, but was of a less slender make than it, and was probably about six times bigger than the largest known bird of that class! To it the term Æpyornis has been applied; the epithet Maximus being appropriately given to the species to which the bones examined belonged.

[2] Ælian. Hist. Animal. lib. xiv. c. 7.

[3] Xenophon, Anabesis, lib. 1, c. 5.