OSTRICHES. 137 



The chicks are often attacked by old birds — always 

 spiteful to little ones which are not their own — and 

 we have had several kicked to death by their vindictive 

 elders. On a neighbouring farm, however, dwelt the 

 usual exception to the rule, in the shape of an old hen, 

 which — althouo^h herself not a mother — showed such a 

 strong affection for chicks, and took such devoted care 

 of them, that at last, much to her delight, she was 

 appointed to the post of herd, vice the small boy, dis- 

 missed as incorrigible. She filled the place of the 

 latter far better than he had ever done ; leading the 

 little creatures, with the greatest care, wherever the 

 tenderest veldt was to be found ; never losing her 

 temper with them, or failing to bring the full number 

 home to bed at sundown ; and altogether acquitting 

 herself in a wonderfully sedate and business-like 

 manner for so scatter-brained a creature as an ostrich. 



Her history ought of course to have ended here ; but 

 truth compels me to state that at last, after she had 

 successfully brought up many families of chicks, and 

 had come to be respected and trusted as the steadiest 

 and most useful of farm-servants, one day the idiotic 

 ostrich-nature asserted itself ; she took a sudden and 

 senseless fright — probably at nothing — lost her wdts, 

 bolted right away, leaving the chicks to get dispersed 

 about the veldt, where only a few were found ; and was 

 herself never heard of a^^ain. 



I think our friends at home would have been rather 

 amused if they could have seen us one day, driving 

 home from Mount Stewart with tiuelve ostriches in our 



