•775- it for harnefies and ihields (1. c. page 44a) does not feem December. - . , to deferve a ienous mveitigation. The cry of the oftrich, according to the defcription I have had given me of it in Africa, in fome refpeits refem- bles the.roaring of the lion, but is ihorter, or, in other words, not drawn out to fo great a length. In this cafe, its cry muft neceflarily behoarfe and rough, as well as fill the breaft o f the hearer with anxiety and terror; and confequently the prophet M i c a h , chap. i. ver. 8, has not unaptly compared it to the voice of a mourner; if in fait by the word rDin in this and other places of holy writ, the oftrich is meant, and not a kind of odd. The young of this bird have no cry at all; one, at leaft, a foot and a half high, which on my return homewards I brought with me alive to the Cape all the way from Honing-klip, did not, during the whole time, viz. twenty-four days, let us hear any thing of it. This was trampled to death by my horfe, juft before my departure from the Cape, otherwife it might have eafily been brought to Europe. It ate a great deal, and was not nice in its food. There were feveral large tame oftriches in the governor’s menagerie at the Cape. Without feeming to be impeded by their weight, they would run along with any body what- foever, and would moveover jump up and perch upon the ihoulders of all fitch as would fuffer it. In confequenceof having made this obfervation, as well as of fimilar inftances to be found in authors, I cannot doubt, but that oftriches might be brought to bear burdens and the like, fo as to become -ufeful to mankind. Tb,e The inftance which is given us by Ad a n s o n o f a young Dc’c”m^ cr, oftrich, not properly trained up to this employ, is there- fore not capable of railing in me the fame doubts as are entertained by M. de B u ffon on this fubjeft. And yet we read in this illuftrious author, 1. c. that Firmius, who reigned in Egypt in the third century, was drawn by oftriches; and that in Joar, in Africa, an Englifhman was feen riding on an oftrich, on which he ufed to take jour- nies, 8cc.- I have converfed with yeomen at the Cape, who had brought up oftriches fo tame, that they went loofe to and from the farm, and were obliged to feek their own food; but at the fame time were fo voracious as to fwal- low chickens whole, and trample hens to death, in order to tear them to pieces afterwards and eat them up. At a certain farm they were obliged to kill one o f thefe oftriches, as he had taken to trampling iheep to death. Quere, Does not the oftrich eat fnakes likewife ? Thefe large birds were, as it appeared to me, chiefly to be found in fuch traits of country as partook o f the properties of the carrow, and produced fucculent plants. I faw but one of them in the four diftriit, as it is called, of Lange Kloof; but this might very probably, like the elephant in the fame diftriit, o f which I have already given an account, Vol. I, page 315, have got out of its latitude. Another kind of large bird, which I have mentioned before, as being in the governor’s menagerie, viz. the ca- fuaryi was not a native of Africa. This had been a very warm day, and though it might feem that I ought by this time to have been inured to heat, yet in confequence of it, I was feized with a violent headach.
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