Giovanni Leone Africano writes that "this fowle liveth in drie desarts and layeth to the number of ten or twelve egges in the sand, which being about the bignesse of great bullets weigh fifteen pounds a piece; but the ostrich is of so weak a memorie, that she presently forgetteth the place where her egges were laid, and, afterwards the same, or some other ostrich hen finding the said eggs by chance hatched and fostereth them as if they were certainely her owne. The chickens are no sooner crept out of the shell but they prowle up and downe the desarts for their food, and before theyr feathers be growne they are so swifte that a man shall hardly overtake them. The ostrich is a silly and deafe creature, feeding upon any thing which it findeth, be it as hard and indigestible as yron."
Of this bird, the Kingfisher, Aristotle thus discourses:--"The halcyon is not much larger than a sparrow; its colour is blue and green, and somewhat purple; its whole body is composed of these colours as well as the wings and neck, nor is any part without every one of these colours. Its bill is somewhat yellow, long and slight; this is its external form. Its nest resembles the marine balls which are called halosachnæ (_probably a Zoophyte_, Alcyonia) except in colour, for they are red; in form it resembles those sicyæ (cucumbers) which have long necks; its size is that of a very large sponge, for some are greater, others less. They are covered up, and have a thick solid part, as well as the cavity; it is not easily cut with a sharp knife, but, when struck or broken with the hand, it divides readily like the halosachnæ. The mouth is narrow, as it were a small entrance, so that the sea water cannot enter, even if the Sea is rough: its cavity is like that of the Sponge. The material of which the nest is composed is disputed, but it appears to be principally composed of the spines of the _belone_, for the bird lives on fish."
Pliny says:--"It is a thing of very rare occurrence to see a halcyon, and then it is only about the time of the setting of the Vergiliæ, and the summer and winter solstices; when one is sometimes to be seen to hover about a ship, and then immediately disappear. They hatch their young at the time of the winter solstice, from which circumstance those days are known as the 'halcyon days;' during this period the sea is calm and navigable, the Sicilian sea in particular."