The Ostrich
Modern observation, and especially Ostrich farming, has thoroughly
exploded the old errors respecting this bird. We believe in its powers
of swallowing anything not too large, but not in its digesting
everything, and certainly not, as Muenster would fain have us believe,
that an Ostrich's dinner consists of a church-door key, and a
horse-shoe. As matters of fact, we know that, when pursued, they do not
bury their heads
in the sand, or a bush; and instead of covering their
eggs with sand, and leaving the sun to hatch them, both the male and
female are excellent, and model parents.
Pliny, however, says differently:--"This bird exceeds in height a man
sitting on horseback, and can surpass him in swiftness, as wings have
been given to aid it in running; in other respects Ostriches cannot be
considered as birds, and do not raise themselves from the earth. They
have cloven talons, very similar to the hoof of the stag (they have but
two toes); with these they fight, and they also employ them in seizing
stones for the purpose of throwing at those who pursue them. They have
the marvellous property of being able to digest every substance without
distinction, but their stupidity is no less remarkable: for although the
rest of their body is so large, they imagine when they have thrust their
head and neck into a bush, that the whole body is concealed."
Giovanni Leone Africano writes that "this fowle liveth in drie desarts
and layeth to the number of ten or twelve egges in the sand, which being
about the bignesse of great bullets weigh fifteen pounds a piece; but
the ostrich is of so weak a memorie, that she presently forgetteth the
place where her egges were laid, and, afterwards the same, or some other
ostrich hen finding the said eggs by chance hatched and fostereth them
as if they were certainely her owne. The chickens are no sooner crept
out of the shell but they prowle up and downe the desarts for their
food, and before theyr feathers be growne they are so swifte that a man
shall hardly overtake them. The ostrich is a silly and deafe creature,
feeding upon any thing which it findeth, be it as hard and indigestible
as yron."