250 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



mousetraps with Bobby, and would take raw and 

 cooked meat from our hauds with equal relish. Indeed 

 I am afraid we overfed him, and induced apoplexy. 

 At any rate, one evening as we sat reading after 

 dinner, he dropped quietly from his perch, and died 

 without a flutter. 



The aasvogel, a repulsively ugly, bald-headed, bare- 

 necked bird of the most pronounced vulture type, is 

 very common in South Africa, especially in the regions 

 where game is most plentiful. These denizens of the 

 air seem to be perpetually hovering, on the watch for 

 prey, at such immense heights as to be quite out of 

 ranofe of human vision ; thouQrh their own keen siofht 

 enables them instantly to detect the prospect of a feed, 

 and if an animal is killed, or even only wounded, they 

 are at once aware of the fact, and, swooping down from 

 their airy height, sail straight to the spot. 



Perhaps you are a " new chum " out hunting, and you 

 bring down an antelope. Although, at the moment of 

 firing your shot, you would have been ready to take 

 your affidavit that — 



" No birds were flying overhead, 

 There were no birds to fly," — 



your game has hardly fallen before, far up in the grey- 

 blue, a tiny speck appears, at first only just visible, 

 but rapidly increasing in size ; then another, and yet 

 another floats into sight, "and still they come," till at 

 last the heavens seem all alive with birds approaching 

 from every direction, outlined against the cloudless sky 

 in diff'erent degrees of size and clearness, according to 



