224 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



ness and liofhtness, each hair beinoj a wide tube as thick 

 as a hedgehog's bristle, but soft as a feather. In spite 

 of its light weight, this curious coat is wonderfully- 

 thick and durable, and saddle-cloths made from it are 

 simply perfection. 



A little klipspringer was brought to us, so young that 

 for the first few weeks it was fed with milk from a 

 baby's bottle. It soon grew tame, and it was very 

 pretty to see the miniature chamois trotting confidingly 

 about the house, always on the extreme tips of those 

 natural alpenstocks, its little pointed feet. These tiny 

 ferules, all four of which would have stood together on 

 a penny-piece, were evidently capable of giving a firm 

 foothold even in the most impossible places. This little 

 creature was one of our unlucky pets — by far the most 

 numerous class in the collection, — and our hope of 

 taking him to England, where he would have enjoyed 

 the proud distinction of being the first of his kind ever 

 imported, was doomed to disappointment. Whether it 

 is really the fact, as one is always told in South Africa, 

 that this buck cannot live in captivity, or whether an 

 inveterate habit of eating the contents of the waste- 

 paper basket, with an impartial relish for printed and 

 written matter, shortened the life of our specimen, I 

 do not know ; but rapid consumption set in, and the 

 pathetic, almost human attacks of coughing were so 

 distressing to witness that it was a relief when the 

 poor little patient succumbed. 



Then, also among the smaller antelopes, there are the 

 iuyker and stenbok. Both these pretty little bucks 



