Ostrich, in Latin struthio or struthio-camelus : a very large bird whose body seems small in proportion to the length of the neck and the feet. This is why most travelers have, at first glance, found some similarities between the body of the ostrich and that of the camel, hence the Latin name struthio-camelus .

Mr. Perrault relates that, of eight ostriches that had been described, five were male and three female, and all were seven feet tall from the top of the head to the ground; the back was approximately four feet above the bottom of the feet, and three feet from the base of the neck to the top of the head; the length of the tail was one foot; the outstretched wing was one and a half feet without feathers, and twice that length with feathers. The plumage of all ostriches was nearly identical; had black and white feathers, some had grey. There were no feathers on the sides of the body under the wings, on the flanks, or on the thighs. The lower part of the neck and halfway up was adorned with smaller feathers than those on the back and abdomen; all of the feathers are as soft and as slender as down, and thus cannot help the ostrich to fly or protect it from air injuries like the feathers of other birds. The top of the neck and the head of the ostrich was covered in part with little white hairs, similar to the shiny bristles on a pig, and in part by small clusters consisting of about a dozen white and very fine hairs, and of a length approximately one third of an inch, which all together had only one root in the form of a stem about the size of a very small pin. These hairs were rather sparse on the neck, and even more sparse on the head, which was completely bald on top. At the end of each wing there were two spurs which nearly resembled the quills of a porcupine; these spurs were about an inch long and one eighth of an inch in diameter at the base; their substance resembled that of a horn. The largest was at the end of the last bone of the wing, and the other was one half-foot lower. The beak was short, and its point was blunt and rounded at the end, which was fortified by a slightly crooked protuberance. The eye quite resembled a human eye in its outer shape; the opening was oval; the upper eyelid was large and its eyelashes were much longer than those of the lower lid; it went from one corner to the other corner in a straight line in the direction of the beak; the thighs were fat and fleshy; the feet were covered from the front with large scales in the shape of plates. Dissertation of the Royal Academy of Science. Volume III Part II. The ostrich has only two toes, both in the front; the inner one is the longest, and it ends in a big black nail; the outer one does not have one. These two toes are joined up to the first joint by a strong membrane. This bird is native to Africa. They are sometimes seen in the desert gathered in such a large group, that they appear from afar to be a group of people on horseback. They can also be found in Asia, mainly in Arabia; and in America there are some different species. The ostrich feeds on different things, plants, grains, and almost anything it finds. It can swallow leather and even iron; which leads one to believe that it can digest this metal; but it would be incorrect to attribute this ability to the ostrich's stomach since it emits the iron in the same state in which it was swallowed. Willughby, Ornithology .

Hay, grasses, barley, beans, eggs, and stones, some of which were the size of a chicken egg, were found in the ventricles of the ostriches that M. Perrault dissected. In one of those ventricles there were up to seventy folds, the majority of which were worn away until three-fourths had rubbed off against each other or against the stones; those that were curved had been worn and polished on the convex side and remained whole on the concave side; everything that was in the ventricle was tainted green by the copper: it has been observed that ostriches die when they have swallowed a lot of iron or copper. Dissertation of the Royal Academy of Sciences, vol. III, part II.

The eggs of an ostrich are very big and their shell very hard: some have been said to weigh close to fifteen pounds: it deposits them in the sand and abandons them to the heat of the sun without covering them; this heat makes them hatch. Willughby, Ornithology . See Bird. [1]

The inner membrane of the ostrich's stomach probably strengthens the stomach: it is laxative when dried and pulverized. Its fat is emollient, resolute and neural. [2]

The ostrich give feather merchants most of the materials they use in almost all of their work.

The grey feathers that are ordinarily under the stomach and the wings are called petit-gris . See Petit-gris.

The male feathers are the most valuable, as much because they are larger, more abundant and have the thickest ends with the finest bristles, as because they can be colored as the workers wish, which can only be done with great difficulty and never well with female feathers.

They are found in Barbary, Egypt, Seyde (Sidon), Aleppo, etc. See Feather.

Notes

1. Attributed to Daubenton.

2. Attributed to Vandenesse.