THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 22Q 



he espies it, dashes towards it, presses it close, and then 

 it disappears. 



The ostrich delights in the heat of the sun, and makes 

 of the sand its cradle and its tomb ; but it is at nigEt that 

 it is most active, that it hides its great eggs in the sand, 

 where, on account of their thick shells, they remain fresh, 

 perhaps for a month, before incubation. 



Yet, in spite of its colossal size, the ostrich is but a 

 pullet in comparison with the Epiornis, that bird of past 

 ages that was of a stature of 20 feet, and whose prodigious 

 fossil eggs, rarely seen in our museums, were seven 

 times greater than those of the ostrich of this epoch, as 

 large as 150 eggs of the hen, or 50,000 of the oiseau- 

 mouche. With a single egg of the Epiornis one might 

 prepare an omelette for a hundred men. 



We know that ostrich plumes have for all time been 

 staple articles of commerce, needing first to be washed, 

 tinted, and curled, when they are often worth 20 dollars 

 for the best specimens. 



Let us now consider the different methods of hunting 

 the ostrich. In the Soudan the Arab employs a plan of 

 his own, and an interesting one. The ostrich has a 

 penchant for geometry, and what we may consider a fatal 

 aptitude, tracing in its flight vast circles, the regularity of 

 which is often the cause of its capture or death. While 

 it is being pursued by some of the hunters, others lie 

 motionless for a time, until with wild cries they launch 

 themselves in a mad rush in a direction at right angles to 

 the course of the bird, like a flashing of sunlit weapons 

 across its path. It is then that the ostrich, confused, hesi- 

 tating and terrified, becomes a victim of its own precision ; 

 but it does not yield without a struggle, and as the spears 

 of its assailants draw near it threatens with its actively- 

 moving feet the hunters, who are often injured by the 

 clouds of stones and gravel thrown into their faces in its 

 efforts at defence. It defends also with desperate bravery 

 its precious eggs and its plumes so*proudly worn upon its 

 shoulders like epaulets. 



