414 CURSORES. 



" The Ostrich is generally seen quietly feeding on some 

 s])ot where no one can approach him without being de- 

 tected by his wary eye. As the wagon moves on far to 

 the windward, he thinks it is intending to circumvent 

 him, so he rushes up a mile or so to the leeward, and so 

 near to the front oxen, that one sometimes gets a shot at 

 the silly bird. When he begins to run, all the game in sight 

 follow his example. I have seen this folly taken advan- 

 tage of when he was quietly feeding in a valley open at 

 both ends. A number of men would commence running, 

 as if to cut otF his retreat from the end through which 

 the wind came ; and although he had the whole country 

 hundreds of miles before him by going to the other end, 

 on he madly rushed to get past the men, and so was 

 speared : he never swerves from the course he once 

 adopts, but only increases his speed. When the Ostrich 

 is feediug, his pace is from twenty to twenty-two inches, 

 and when terrified, as in the case noticed, it is from eleven 

 and a half to thirteen or fourteen feet in length. Only 

 in one case was I at all satisfied of being able to count 

 the rate of speed by a stop-watch, and, if I am not mis- 

 taken, there were thirty in ten seconds : generally, one's 

 eye can no more follow the legs, than it could the spokes 

 of a carriage-wheel in rapid motion. If we take the 

 above number and twelve feet stride as the average 

 pace, we have a speed of twenty-six miles an hour. It 

 cannot be very much above that, and is therefore slower 

 than a railway locomotive. They are sometimes shot by 

 the horsemen making a cross-cut to their undeviating 

 course ; but few Englishmen ever succeed in killing them. 

 The Ostrich begins to lay its eggs before she has fixed on 

 a spot for a nest, which is only a hollow a few inches 

 deep in the sand, and about a yard in diameter. Solitary 

 eggs, named by the Bechuans ' losetla,' are thus found 

 lying forsaken all over the country, and become a prey 

 to the jackal. She seems averse to risking a spot for a 

 nest, and often lays her eggs in that of another Ostrich ; 

 so that as many as forty-five have been found in one nest. 

 Some eggs contain small concretions of the matter which 

 forms the shell, as occurs also in the case of the common 

 fowl : this has given rise to the idea of stones in the eggs. 

 Both male and female assist in the incubation ; but the 

 number of females being always the greatest, it is probable 



