His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
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But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not destined to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape.
11:16. The ostrich, and the owl, and the larus, and the hawk according to its kind.
Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases. A number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware.... One man went strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his hat. The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, “Comrades! Don’t touch anything! Don’t take anything! This is the property of the People!” Immediately twenty voices were crying, “Stop! Put everything back! Don’t take anything! Property of the People!” Many hands dragged the spoilers down. Damask and tapestry were snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze clock. Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. It was all utterly spontaneous. Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, “Revolutionary discipline! Property of the People....”
4:3. Ghimel. Even the sea monsters have drawn out the breast, they have given suck to their young: the daughter of my people is cruel, like the ostrich in the desert.
14:15. And the ostrich, and the owl, and the larus, and the hawk according to its kind:
They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation and to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote three letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa to her contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in while they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished her work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded without looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up in irritation. "Well?", asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. "What is it you want then?", asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most respect for. "Yes", she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, "well then, that thing in there, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it. That's all been sorted out." Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling them all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in and, clearly peeved, called out "Cheerio then, everyone", turned round sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went.
And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop; as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe, in the midst of naked swords. His massive coach, all covered with gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter, the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is the government."
"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's _well_ for you to set there and blubber like a babyit's fitten for you, after the way you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble everythingand I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_ that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make up the deffisityou wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch and one thing or another, and scoop it _all_!"
39:13. The wing of the ostrich is like the wings of the heron, and of the hawk.
When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter.
But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door. There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head and quickening his pace went down the street.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.
Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.
_Sir George Grey's Governorship._--In 1854 Sir George Grey became governor of the Cape, and the colony owed much to his wise administration. The policy, imposed by the home government, of abandoning responsibility beyond the Orange river, was, he perceived, a mistaken one, and the scheme he prepared in 1858 for a confederation of all South Africa (q.v.) was rejected by Great Britain. By his energetic action, however, in support of the missionaries Moffat and Livingstone, Sir George kept open for the British the road through Bechuanaland to the far interior. To Sir George was also due the first attempt, missionary effort apart, to educate the Kaffirs and to establish British authority firmly among them, a result which the self-destruction of the Amaxosa rendered easy. Beyond the Kei the natives were left to their own devices. Sir George Grey left the Cape in 1861. During his governorship the resources of the colony had been increased by the opening up of the copper mines in Little Namaqualand, the mohair wool industry had been established and Natal made a separate colony. The opening, in November 1863, of the railway from Cape Town to Wellington, begun in 1859, and the construction in 1860 of the great breakwater in Table Bay, long needed on that perilous coast, marked the beginning in the colony of public works on a large scale. They were the more or less direct result of the granting to the colony of a large share in its own government. In 1865 the province of British Kaffraria was incorporated with the colony, under the title of the Electoral Divisions of King William's Town and East London. The transfer was marked by the removal of the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors to the natives, and the free trade in intoxicants which followed had most deplorable results among the Kaffir tribes. A severe drought, affecting almost the entire colony for several years, caused great depression of trade, and many farmers suffered severely. It was at this period (1869) that ostrich-farming was successfully established as a separate industry. Entry: HISTORY
Minerals, especially copper, are plentiful in the country. The chief copper deposits are at Tsumeb, which is 4230 ft. above the sea, in the Otavi district. Diamonds are found on and near the surface of the soil in the Lüderitz Bay district, and diamonds have also been found in the neighbourhood of Gibeon. A little pottery is made, and the Hottentot women are clever in making fur cloths. In the north the Ovampo do a little smith-work and grass-plaiting. The external trade of the country was of slow growth. The exports, previous to the opening up of the Otavi mines, consisted chiefly of live stock--sent mainly to Cape Colony--guano, ivory, horns, hides and ostrich feathers. The chief imports are food stuffs, textiles and metals, and hardware. In 1903 the value of the exports was £168,560, that of the imports £388,210. The war which followed (see below, _History_) led to a great shrinking of exports, rendering the figures for the period 1904-1907 useless for purposes of comparison. About 85% of the imports are from Germany. Entry: GERMAN
The birds of Australia in their number and variety of species may be deemed some compensation for its poverty of mammals; yet it will not stand comparison in this respect with regions of Africa and South America in the same latitudes. The black swan was thought remarkable when discovered, as belying an old Latin proverb. There is also a white eagle. The vulture is wanting. Sixty species of parrots, some of them very handsome, are found in Australia. The emu corresponds with the African and Arabian ostrich, the rhea of South America, and the cassowary of the Moluccas and New Guinea. In New Zealand this group is represented by the apteryx, as it formerly was by the gigantic moa, the remains of which have been found likewise in Queensland. The graceful _Menura superba_, or lyre-bird, with its tail feathers spread in the shape of a lyre, is a very characteristic form. The mound-raising megapodes, the bower-building satin-birds, and several others, display peculiar habits. The honey-eaters present a great diversity of plumage. There are also many kinds of game birds, pigeons, ducks, geese, plovers and quails. The ornithology of New South Wales and Queensland is more varied and interesting than that of the other provinces. Entry: 60
CASSOWARY (_Casuarius_), a genus of struthious birds, only inferior in size to the emeu and ostrich, and, according to Sir R. Owen, approximating more closely than any other living birds to the extinct moas of New Zealand. The species are all characterized by short rudimentary wings, bearing four or five barbless shafts, a few inches long, and apparently useless for purposes of flight, of running, or of defence; and by loosely webbed feathers, short on the neck, but of great length on the rump and back, whence they descend over the body forming a thick hair-like covering. They possess stout limbs, with which they kick in front, and have the inner toe armed with a long powerful claw. The common cassowary (_Casuarius galeatus_) stands 5 ft. high, and has a horny, helmet-like protuberance on the crown of its head; the front of the neck is naked and provided with two brightly-coloured wattles. It is a native of the Island of Ceram, where it is said to live in pairs, feeding on fruits and herbs, and occasionally on small animals. The mooruk, or Bennett's cassowary (_Casuarius Bennettii_), is a shorter and more robust bird, approaching in the thickness of its legs to the moas. It differs further from the preceding species in having its head crowned with a horny plate instead of a helmet. It has only been found in New Britain, where the natives are said to regard it with some degree of veneration. When captured by them shortly after being hatched, and reared by the hand, it soon becomes tame and familiar; all the specimens which have reached Europe alive have been thus domesticated by the natives. The adult bird in the wild state is exceedingly shy and difficult of approach, and, owing to its great fleetness and strength, is rarely if ever caught. It eats voraciously, and, like the ostrich, will swallow whatever comes in its way. (See EMEU.) Entry: CASSOWARY
The divisions of the earth into faunal regions by Dr P.L. Sclater have been found to hold good for a large number of groups of animals as different in their mode of life as birds and mammals, and they may thus be accepted as based on nature. They are six in number: (1) _Palaearctic_, including Europe, Asia north of the Himalaya, and Africa north of the Sahara; (2) _Ethiopian_, consisting of Africa south of the Atlas range, and Madagascar; (3) _Oriental_, including India, Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago north of Wallace's line, which runs between Bali and Lombok; (4) _Australian_, including Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Polynesia; (5) _Nearctic_ or North America, north of Mexico; and (6) _Neotropical_ or South America. Each of these divisions is the home of a special fauna, many species of which are confined to it alone; in the Australian region, indeed, practically the whole fauna is peculiar and distinctive, suggesting a prolonged period of complete biological isolation. In some cases, such as the Ethiopian and Neotropical and the Palaearctic and Nearctic regions, the faunas, although distinct, are related, several forms on opposite sides of the Atlantic being analogous, e.g. the lion and puma, ostrich and rhea. Where two of the faunal realms meet there is usually, though not always, a mixing of faunas. These facts have led some naturalists to include the Palaearctic and Nearctic regions in one, termed _Holarctic_, and to suggest transitional regions, such as the _Sonoran_, between North and South America, and the _Mediterranean_, between Europe and Africa, or to create sub-regions, such as Madagascar and New Zealand. Oceanic islands have, as a rule, distinctive faunas and floras which resemble, but are not identical with, those of other islands in similar positions. Entry: VI
No tattooing or scarring is performed on the men, but Sir Harry Johnston noticed women with parallel lines burnt into the skin round the eyes. In both sexes the lobes of the ears are distended into great loops, through holes in which large disks of wood are thrust. Bead necklaces, bead and wood armlets are worn by men, and before marriage the Masai girl has thick iron wire wound round her legs so tightly as to check the calf development. The women wear dressed hides or calico; the old men wear a skin or cloth cape. The warriors wind red calico round their waists, a circle of ostrich feathers round their face (or a cap of lion or colobus skin) and fringes of long white fur round the knee. Masai houses are of two kinds. The agricultural tribes build round huts with walls of reeds or sticks, and conical, grass-thatched roofs. The true Masai nomads, however, have houses unlike those of any other neighbouring negro tribe. Long, low (not more than 6 ft. high), flat-roofed, they are built on a framework of sticks with strong partitions dividing the structure into separate compartments, each a dwelling, with low, oblong door. Mud and cow-dung are plastered on to the brushwood used in the roofing. Beds are made of brushwood neatly stacked and covered with hides. The fireplace is a circle of stones. The only furniture, besides cooking-pots, consists of long gourds used as milkcans, half-gourds as cups, and small three-legged stools cut out of a single block of wood and used by the elder men to sit on. The Masai are not hunters of big game except lions, but they eat the eland and kudu. The domestic animals are cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and dogs. Only women and the married men smoke. The dead are ordinarily not buried, but the bodies are carried a short distance from the village and left on the ground to be devoured by hyenas, jackals and vultures. Important chiefs are buried, however, and a year later the eldest son or successor recovers the skull, which is treasured as a charm. The medicine men of Masai are often the chiefs, and the supreme chief is almost always a medicine man. Entry: MASAI
East Africa is rich in all kinds of antelope, and the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus are still plentiful in parts. Characteristic are the giraffe, the chimpanzee and the ostrich. Buffaloes and zebras occur in two or three varieties. Lions and leopards are found throughout the country. Crocodiles are numerous in all the larger rivers. Snakes, many venomous, abound. Of birds there are comparatively few on the steppe, but by rivers, lakes and swamps they are found in thousands. Locusts occasion much damage, and ants of various kinds are often a plague. The tsetse fly (_Glossina morsitans_) infests several districts; the sand-flea has been imported from the west coast. Land and water turtles are numerous. Entry: GERMAN
If the note of the 15th century be variety of form, that of the 16th century, the last important chapter in the history of armour, is surface decoration, the harness of great folk atoning in some measure for loss of the beautiful medieval sense of line by elaborate enrichment. Plain engraving, niello, russet work, golden inlay and beaten ornament are common methods of enrichment. The great plume of ostrich feathers flows from the helmet crown of leaders in war. As in the reign of Edward III., costume's fashion affects the forms of armour, the broad toe of the Henry VIII. shoe being imitated in steel, as the wide fluted skirts of the so-called Maximilian armour imitate the German fashion in civil dress which the Imperial host popularized through northern Europe (fig. 11). These skirts have been called "lamboys" by modern writers on military antiquities, but the word seems an antiquarianism of no value, apparently a misreading of the word "jambeis" in some early document. So many notable examples of the armour of this 16th century are accessible in European collections, other illustrations occurring in great plenty, that its details call for little discussion; a fine and characteristic suit is that by the famous English armourer, Jacob Topf (fig. 12), which belonged to Sir Christopher Hatton. Into this century the arquebusier marches, demanding a chief place in the line of battle, although it is a common error that the improvement in fire-arms drove out the fully armed warrior, whose plates gave him no protection. Until the rifle came to the soldier's hands, plate armour could easily be made shot-proof. It was driven from the field by the new strategy which asked for long marches and rapid movements of armies. This century's armour for the tilt-yard gives such protection to the champion, with its many reinforcing pieces, that unless the caged helm were used--the same which cost Henry II. of France his life--the risks of the tilt-yard must have fallen much below those of the polo-field. The horse with crinet, chafron and bards of steel was as well covered from harm. Entry: FIG
In the ostrich ankylosis has prevented the flexion of the hand at the wrist joint so that the quills--primaries and secondaries--form an unbroken series of about forty in number. Of these sixteen belong to the primary or metacarpo-digital series, a number exceeding that of any other bird. What the significance of this may be with regard to the primitive wing it is impossible to say at present. The coverts, in their disposition, bear a general resemblance to those of Carinate wings; but they differ on account of the great length of the feathers and the absence of any definite overlap. Entry: 8
Of the emeus (as the word is now restricted) the best known is the _Casuarius novae-hollandiae_ of John Latham, made by Vieillot the type of his genus _Dromaeus_,[5] whence the name of the family (_Dromaeidae_) is taken. This bird immediately after the colonization of New South Wales (in 1788) was found to inhabit the south-eastern portion of Australia, where, according to John Hunter (_Hist. Journ._, &c., pp. 409, 413), the natives call it _Maracry_, _Marryang_ or _Maroang_; but it has now been so hunted down that not an example remains at large in the districts that have been fully settled. It is said to have existed also on the islands of Bass Straits and in Tasmania, but it has been exterminated in both, without, so far as is known, any ornithologist having had the opportunity of determining whether the race inhabiting those localities was specifically identical with that of the mainland or distinct. Next to the ostrich the largest of existing birds, the common emeu is an inhabitant of the more open country, feeding on fruits, roots and herbage, and generally keeping in small companies. The nest is a shallow pit scraped in the ground, and from nine to thirteen eggs, in colour varying from a bluish-green to a dark bottle-green, are laid therein. These are hatched by the cock-bird, the period of incubation lasting from 70 to 80 days. The young at birth are striped longitudinally with dark markings on a light ground. A remarkable structure in _Dromaeus_ is a singular opening in the front of the windpipe, communicating with a tracheal pouch. This has attracted the attention of several anatomists, and has been well described by Dr Murie (_Proc. Zool. Soc._, 1867, pp. 405-415). Various conjectures have been made as to its function, the most probable of which seems to be that it is an organ of sound in the breeding-season, at which time the hen-bird has long been known to utter a remarkably loud booming note. Due convenience being afforded to it, the emeu thrives well, and readily propagates its kind in Europe. Like other Ratite birds it will take to the water, and examples have been seen voluntarily swimming a wide river. (A. N.) Entry: EMEU