118 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



of Ostrich eggs, gave the necessary stimuhis to bring 

 the machines to perfection. We will now treat of the 

 first introduction of the art into Africa. 



Thirteen years ago the very name ^^ incubator " was 

 scarcely known at the Cape ; and Avhen I imported 

 a machine to experiment with Ostrich eggs^ those that 

 heard of it looked upon it as a mad idea. Of course 

 I did not succeed at first ; many things had to be found 

 out : notably, the necessity of reducing the temperature 

 towards the end of the incubation, and how to tell when 

 the chicks were ready to come out_, so as to save those 

 that were glued fast and could not break out ; and how to 

 manage the temperature with such large bodies, and to 

 provide for the long period of six weeks' incubation, 

 and other niceties, which all seem very simple now 

 they have become generally known, but Avhich entailed 

 many weary days of study and watching the habits of 

 the birds to find out. 



Now, as is natural, other inventors are in the 

 field, and many kinds of incubators are made and sold 

 in all the large colonial towns, some good, some 

 decidedly indifferent, but all pretty well successful if 

 the eggs are left under the old birds for a fortnight or 

 more, and then put in the machines. But this, of 

 course, loses half the advantage of artificial hatching ; 

 1st, in that it is during the first few davs that the birds 



