Common ostrich other members of Palaeognathae and thus the flighted tinamous are the sister group to the extinct moa. It is distinctive in its appearance, with a long neck and legs, and can run for a long time at a speed of or even up to about , the fastest land speed of any bird. The common ostrich is the largest living species of bird and lays the largest eggs of any living bird (extinct elephant birds of Madagascar and the giant moa of New Zealand laid larger eggs). The common ostrich's diet consists mainly of plant matter, though it also eats
François Lays at the École royale de Musique et de Déclamation, which had replaced the Conservatoire. The salary was indispensable to Lays because his gout meant he was no longer able to appear at the Opéra as regularly as he had done, leading to a drastic reduction in extra income. In 1816, Lays had the satisfaction of enjoying one final triumph in the comic opera "Le rossignol" by Louis-Sébastien Lebrun (1764–1829), set in the foothills of his native Pyrenees. Lays took one of his favourite stock parts, "a bailiff in his fifties, a lover of good food and beautiful young women, naive