xii. THE OSTRICH. 175 



ground and had better return to the ostrich, which as a 

 baby is decidedly pretty, not only in the eyes of Mrs. 0. 

 but of mere outsiders also. It passes through the usual 

 angular hobbledehoy stage, when the bones seem to have 

 grown too rapidly for their fleshy garments, and becomes 

 mature at about five years. The plumage of the male is 

 then a gloridus glossy black, while that of the female is a 

 quiet grey. Both have white wings and tails; but the 

 tail feathers are very different from and altogether inferior 

 to those of the wing, which has a series of twenty-four 

 beautiful white plumes. The thighs are bare and the 

 skin is of a slatey-blue colour. Head and neck have a few 

 bristles and scanty tufts of down. In the breeding season 

 the bill of the male bird, and the large scales on the legs, 

 are tinged of a deep rose colour, "looking just as if they 

 were made of the finest pink coral." The North African 

 or Barbary ostrich is a handsomer fellow than his southern 

 cousin, the thighs, head, and neck being of a bright red. 



On South African ostrich farms the birds are plucked 

 once a year or oftener. Mrs. Martin thus graphically de- 

 scribes the operation : " The first sight of a plucking 

 interested me especially. All comes back to me now with 

 the clearness of a photograph the bright, cloudless 

 metallic-looking South African sky above us ; and for a 

 background the long range of rocky mountains, each stain 

 on their rugged sides, each aloe or spekboom plant growing 

 on them, sharply defined in that clear atmosphere as if 

 seen through the large end of an opera-glass. In the fore- 

 ground a forest of long necks, and a crowd of foolish, 

 frightened faces, gaping beaks, and throats all puffed out 

 with air the latter ludicrous grimace, accompanied some- 

 times by a short, hollow sound, half grunt, half cough, 

 being the ostrich's mode of expressing deepest disgust and 

 dejection. There is a constant heavy stamping of power- 



