The eggs are frequently found to contain small oval pebble-like bodies, about the size of a marrowfat pea, of a pale yellow color, and exceedingly hard. Barrow found as many as twelve in one egg: and they are converted into buttons by the dandified Hottentots, and perhaps also the Boers.
The porcelain character of the shell and its shape, well adapt it for cups, and such vessels are frequently elegantly mounted in silver, and sometimes in chased gold. The ancient Egyptians used them in their places of worship, and, together with the plumes, insisted on their forming part of the tribute paid by conquered countries where ostriches abounded. They were probably suspended in the temples, as they still are in the Coptic churches, the Copts regarding them as emblems of watchfulness.
When the allied sovereigns were in London, in the days when the Prince Regent was in full possession of his powers of entertainment, and we may add of appetite, a marvelous and unaccountable evaporation of oil took place nightly in the murky lamps, which then served to make darkness visible. In vain were the lamps replenished—they would go out, and the glass receptacles were invariably found empty. The contractor was in despair; the churchwardens took the matter up, and the minds of the parishioners were as gloomy as their streets. One night, however, the mystery was unexpectedly cleared up. A worthy old watchman, or “Charley,” as the class was familiarly called, comfortably wrapped in his sixteen-caped great coat, feeling himself tired with his exertions in informing the sleeping world that it was “past ten o’clock and a cloudy night,” sat down on a step in the shade to take five-and-twenty winks, but just as he was composing his thoughts previous to dropping off, he was startled by seeing a strangely dressed, bearded figure approach a lamp, and after a hasty look round, actively swarm up the post, take out the lamp, snuff the wick with his fingers, and drink the oil! Here was a discovery! Away posted the guardian of the night and reported what he had seen, but the inspector roundly told him that he must have been either drunk or asleep, for he shrewdly remarked, “’Taint likely that them beggars of furriners would go a-drinking ile when they could get brown stout or Tipper Hale.” Notwithstanding the utter improbability of the thing, a watch was set, and, sure enough, it turned out that the mysterious strangers were the Cossacks, who nightly indulged in deep libations of train-oil at the parish expense.
A not less puzzling disappearance of oil took place some years ago from the lamps in a certain Eastern church, and so pertinaciously did the lamps go out, that the priests felt a supernatural influence, and apprehending something terrible, gave orders for a general penance and scourging of backs. The minds as well as the backs of the obedient congregation were, however, infinitely relieved by the accidental discovery (by a dyspeptic priest who could not sleep through heartburn) that the extinguishing of the lamps was attributable to natural and not, as feared, to supernatural causes. A colony of rats had taken up their quarters in the church, and following the example of the gallant Captain Dalgetty, looked at once to the procuring of “provend.” An enterprising member of one of the foraging parties scrambling down a rope by which one of the lamps was suspended, was fortunate enough to hit upon some uncommonly nice oil. The news of this glorious discovery spread, and all the rats chorussed,
“Black rats and white, brown rats and gray
Scramble down the lamp-rope, ye that scramble may.”
Accordingly, the colony flocked to these oleaginous mines with as much eagerness as another description of colonists are now flocking to mines of gold. The result has been described, but in the end the rats were no match for the priests, who, as soon as the rogues were found out, lighted upon the expedient of passing each of the ropes through an ostrich egg. A most effectual and tantalizing barrier was now opposed to the predatory excursions of our furry friends. In vain they sniffed and squeaked; each, as he attempted “to round the cape,” slid off the smooth egg and was smashed on the stones beneath.
The ostrich is a very prudent, wary bird, for which reason the quaggas generally attach themselves instinctively to a troop of these birds, trusting implicitly to their caution for the discovery of danger. This alliance was remarked by Xenophon, who says, “the country was a plain throughout, as even as the sea, and full of wormwood. Of wild creatures the most numerous were wild asses, (quaggas,) and not a few ostriches, besides bustards and roe-deer, (gazelles,) which our horsemen sometimes chased!”[[3]]
This bird was not sacred among the ancient Egyptians, but there is reason to believe that it was so with the Assyrians. It has not only been found as an ornament on the robes of figures in the most ancient edifices at Nimroud, but it was frequently introduced on Babylonian and Assyrian cylinders, always accompanied by the emblematical flower. The Romans appear to have regarded it as a delicacy, for Apicius left a receipt for a particular sauce for dressing it; and it is recorded of Heliogabalus, that he had the brains of six hundred of these birds served up as a dish at one of his feasts. But in trencher feats the pseudo-emperor Formius far outdid either, as it is related by Vopiscus, that be devoured a whole ostrich to his own share at a single sitting.
It was broadly asserted by Aristotle, that the ostrich was partly bird and partly quadruped; and by Pliny, that it might almost be said to belong to the class of beasts; ridiculous as such assertions might be supposed, they were not altogether without foundation according to the knowledge of the times. The common name by which the ostrich was designated by the Greeks and Romans, and also by the nations of the East, was the camel bird. Indeed, the total want of feathers on its long and very powerful legs, and the division of the feet into two toes only, connected at their base by a membrane, are very similar to the legs and long, divided hoof of the camel: nor does the resemblance cease here, for there is another singularity in their external conformation, which affords a still more remarkable coincidence. Both camel and ostrich are furnished with hard, callous protuberances on the chest, and on the posterior part of the abdomen, on which they support themselves when at rest, and they both lie down in the same manner, by first bending their knees, then applying the anterior callosity, and lastly the posterior, to the ground. When to this we add the patience of thirst of both, and their inhabiting the same arid deserts, the two may well be compared with each other.