“Deep in the wood, thy voice I list, and love Thy soft complaining song, thy tender cooing; Oh, what a winning way thou hast of wooing, Gentlest of all thy race--sweet Turtle Dove! Thine is a note which doth not pass away Like the light music of a summer’s day; Hushing the voice of mirth, and staying folly, And waking in the breast a gentle melancholy.” INGLIS. [Illustration] § VI. _Grallatores, or Waders._ [Illustration: THE OSTRICH. (_Struthio camelus._)] THIS bird is a native of Africa, and is so tall that when it holds up its head it is seven or eight feet in height. The head is very small in comparison with the body, being hardly bigger than one of the toes, and is covered, as well as the neck, with a kind of down, or thin-set hair, instead of feathers. The sides and thighs are entirely bare and flesh-coloured. The lower part of the neck, where the feathers begin, is white. The wings are very short in proportion to the size of the bird, and in fact are too small to enable it to fly; but when it runs, which it does with a strange jumping kind of motion, it raises its short wings and holds them quivering over its back, where they seem to serve as a kind of sail to gather the wind, and carry the bird onwards. The speed which it will thus attain is enormous. The swiftest greyhound cannot overtake it; and indeed an Arab on his horse cannot hope to capture an ostrich without having recourse to stratagem. He dexterously throws a stick between its legs as it runs, and so tripping it up, is enabled to secure it. In its flight it spurns the pebbles behind it like shot against the pursuer. And this is not their only mode of annoyance. They have been known to attack men with their claws, with which they are able to strike with terrific force. The feathers of the back in the cock are coal black, in the hen only dusky, and so soft that they resemble a kind of wool. The tail is thick, bushy, and round; in the cock whitish, in the hen dusky, with white tops. These are the feathers so generally in requisition to decorate the head-dress of ladies and the helmets of warriors. The Ostrich swallows anything that presents itself, leather, glass, iron, bread, hair, &c., but the old notion that the Ostrich could digest metals is certainly incorrect. An Ostrich in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park was killed by swallowing a lady’s parasol. “O’er the wild waste the stupid Ostrich strays In devious search, to pick a scanty meal, Whose fierce digestion gnaws the temper’d steel.” MICKLE’S LUSIAD.