4. Locality. — Tlie ostrich roams over the whole of Africa from the Sahara to the Cape ; but principally affects vast desert plains, over which its lofty stature gives it a great command of sight. It is still abundant in the Arabian peninsula, and extends into the waste and arid regions that bound it on the north. It was predicted both by Isaiah (ch. xiii, 21) and by Jeremiah (ch. 1, 39) that ostriches should dwell at Babj-Ion, than which there could scarcely have been devised a feature more strongly fitted to mark the silence and desolation, not merely of the city itself, but of the whole region in which it stood, and the utter contrast of this condition with that in which it sat the lady of kingdoms, and the centre to which converged all the traffic of a plain that swarmed with towns and cities. The bird of the desert still strides over the Euphratean plains. Herbert saj'S he saw it between Lar and Shiraz. ]\Ir. Ainsworth also im]ilies that it still exists in the arid wastes of IMesopo- tamia and Assyria, though it has become rare. Dr. Kitto informs us that it " inhabits the great Syrian des- ert, especially the plains extending from the Hauran towards Jebel Shammar and Nejed. Some are found in the Ilauran, and a few are taken almost every year, even within two days' journey of Damascus" (/'////.<. Hist. of Pah'stiiic, p. 407). Prophecy assigns it to Idumasa (Isa. xxxiv, 13). Ostriches exist, not only in Africa, but in the region of Arabia, east and south of Palestine beyond the Euphrates ; but it may be a question wheth- er the3' extend so far to the eastward as Goa, although that limit is assigned them bv late French ornithologists.
OSTRICH
475
OSWALD
The two species appear proniiscuousl3' in Asia and Africa, but the troops or coveys of each are always separate. The gray is more common in the south, while the black, which grows largest in Caffraria, predominates to the north of the equator. One of the last mentioned, taken on board a French prize, and wounded in the capture, was brought to London, where it was able to peck its food from a cross-beam eleven feet from the ground. The enormous bird afterwards shown in Bullock's mu- seum was said to be the same. The common-sized os- trich weighs about eighty pounds; whence it may be judged that the individual here mentioned may have been at least forty pounds heavier.
5. Scripture Notices, etc. — The ostrich is mentioned in the Old Testament among unclean birds (Lev. xi, IG ; Deut. xiv, 15), less, perhaps, because of the voracity with which it swallows glass, metals, etc. (/Elian, Anim. xiv, 7 ; Shaw, Trav. p. 889), than because it appeared to the Hebrews as a kind of hybrid, half bird and half beast (comp. Sommer, Bill. A hhdl. i, 257), or because the ideas of desolation and terror were naturally associated with its home in the desert. Indeed, the Arabians and Ethi- opians eat the flesh of the ostrich with delight (see Diod. Sic. iii, 28; Strabo, xvi, 772), and in India, and even in Rome, it was considered a delicacy (/Elian, Anim. xiv, 13; Laraprid. Vit. Ilelivt/uh. p. 27). But it is only when young that it could be palatable to a mod- ern taste ; and it is always dry and hard (see Aben-Ezra, on Exod. xxiii, 29; Galen, iJe Aliment. Fuciilt. iii, 20). African Arabs, says Mr. Tristram, eat its flesh, which is good and sweet. Ostrich's brains were among the dainties that were placed on the supper-tables of the ancient Romans. The fat of the ostrich is sometimes used in medicine for the cure of palsy and rheumatism (Pococke, T7-av. i, 209). It is mentioned as living in the desert in Isa. xiii, 21 ; xxxiv, 13 ; xliii, 20 ; Jer. 1, 39 ; Lam. iv, 3 ; comp. Thcophrast. Plant, iv, 4, p. 322 ; Je- rome on Isa. xiv. This is so notorious of the ostrich that the Arabian zoologists suppose that it never drinks. It is said to be hardened against its young (Lam. iv, 3). This is confirmed of the ostrich by travellers (comp. Shaw, Trav. p. 388). Yet the common statement that the ostrich deposits and leaves its eggs in the nests of other birds cannot be supported, ^lian even speaks of the ostrich as peculiarly fond of its young (Anim. xiv, 7). "As a further proof of the affection of the os- trich for its young" (we quote from Shaw's Zooloc/y, xi, 426), '• it is related by Thunberg 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 to prevent his noticing her eggs or j'oung." A mournful cry or scream is attributed to it (Mic. i, 8; Job xxx, 29 ; comp. Bochart, Hieroz. ii, 81 1 sq.). Shaw testifies to the lugubrious voice of this bird: "During the lonesome part of the night they often make a dole- ful and hideous noise, which would sometimes be like the roaring of a lion ; at other times it would bear re- semblance to the hoarser voices of other quadrupeds, particularly of the bull and the ox. I have often heard them groan, as if they were in the greatest agonies" (ii, 349). Dr. Livingstone refers to the loudness and lion-like character of the sound : " The silly ostrich makes a noise as loud [as the lion]. ... I have been careful to inquire the opinions of Europeans who have heard both, if they could detect any difTerence between the roar of a lion and that of an ostrich ; the invariable answer was that they could not when the animal was at any distance. ... To this day I can distinguish be- tween them with certainty onlj' by knowing that the ostrich roars by daj^, and the lion by night" (South Africa, p. 141). The name D'^Di'l (Job xxxix, 13) is given in allusion to this en,', as is sufficiently clear from the context. The following is a close translation of the poetical description of this bird in the passage just cited (Job xxxix, 13-18), which aptly delineates its chief characteristics ••