OSTRICH 665 



more it Avoiild seem to guard their common treasure from jackals 

 and small beasts-of-prey than directly to forward the process of 

 hatching, for that is often left wholly to the sun.^ Some thirty 

 eggs are laid in the nest, and round it are scattered perhaps as many 

 more. These last are said to be broken by the old birds to serve 

 as nourishment for the newlj:^- hatched chicks, whose stomachs cannot 

 bear the hard food on which their parents thrive. The greatest 

 care is taken by them not only to place the nest where it may not 

 be discovered, but to avoid being seen when going to or from it, 

 and their solicitude for their tender young is no less. Andersson 

 in his Lake N' garni (pp. 253-269) has given a lively account of the 

 pursuit by himself and Mr. Francis Galton of a brood of Ostriches, 

 in the course of which the father of the family flung himself on the 

 ground and feigned being wounded to distract their attention from 

 his off"spring. Though the Ostrich ordinarily inhabits the most arid 

 districts, it needs water to drink ; and, moreover, it will frequently 

 bathe, sometimes even, according to Von Heuglin, in the sea. 



The question whether to recognize more than one species of 

 Ostrich, the Strutliio camelus of Linnaeus, has been for some years 

 agitated without leading to a satisfactory solution.^ It has long 

 been known that, while eggs from North Africa present a perfectly 

 smooth surface, those from South Africa are pitted (see page 190, 

 note 4). It has also been observed that northern birds have the 

 skin of the parts not covered with feathers flesh-coloured, while 

 this skin is bluish in southern birds, and hence the latter have been 

 thought to need specific designation as S. australis. More recently 

 examples from the Somali country have been described as forming 

 a distinct species under the name of S. molyhdophanes,^ from the 

 leaden colour of their naked parts. 



The genus Struthio forms the type of one group of the Subclass 

 Ratit^E, which diflers so widely from the rest, in points that have 

 been concisely set forth by Prof. Huxley (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, 

 p. 419), as to justify us in regarding it as an Order, to which the 

 name Struthmies may be applied ; but that term, as well as 



^ By those whose experience is derived from the observation of captive 

 Ostriches this fact has been disputed. But, to say nothing of the effects of the 

 enforced monogamy in which such birds live, the difference of the circumstances 

 in which they find themselves, and in particular their removal from the heat- 

 retaining sands of the desert and its burning sunshine, is enough to account 

 for the change of habit. Von Heuglin also (p. 933) is explicit on this point. 

 That hen Ostriches while on duty crouch to avoid detection is only natural, and 

 this habit seems to have led hasty observers to suppose they were really brooding. 



^ Dr. Gadow tells me that the discrepancy of several accounts of the Ostrich's 

 anatomy is such as to suggest the possibility of more than one species. 



^ Apparently first noticed in a Berlin newspaper {Sonntagsb. d. Norddeutsch. 

 Allgem. Zeitung) by Dr. Keichenow, 16th Sept. 1883, and later, Mitth. Orn. Ver. 

 Wien, 1883, tab., and Journ. f. Orn. 1883, p. 399. 



