The ostrich is a bird that has wings but cannot fly. It has feet like a camel's, or perhaps cloven hooves like a cow. It can digest anything, even iron. It lays its eggs when it sees the star Virgilia (the Pleiades) rising. It is careless of its eggs; it lays them on the ground and covers them with sand, then leaves them to hatch on their own, warmed by the summer sun.

Just as the ostrich forgets its eggs, so should man forget the world, and as the ostrich looks to the star, so should man concentrate on heaven.

The Aberdeen Bestiary uses the chapter on the ostrich to launch into a seven page (folio 41r - 44r) sermon on hypocrisy.

The eggs of the ostrich are large enough to be used for drinking vessels if they are cut in half. Their feathers are used to decorate the helmets of warriors.

Ostriches were and are not found only in Australia. "The North African ostrich was the most widespread subspecies of ostrich. It formerly had an extensive range but is now thought to live in fragmented pockets in Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic and Senegal, whilst extinct in most of its range in northern Africa. Reintroduction projects for the ostriches have begun, especially in northern Sahara, where North African ostriches had been extinct for 50 years." - Wikipedia

African ostrich feet do resemble camel feet. Ostrich feet have two separate toes, one larger than the other, with a nail at the end of the larger one. Camel feet also have two toes, both approximately the same size, each with a nail at the end.