XII. 



THE OSTRICH. 177 



usual, resents the interference with her laws, and the 

 feathers of birds which have been thus treated soon de- 

 teriorate. It is best to pluck only once a year. The tails, 

 and the glossy black feathers on the bodies of the birds, 

 having small quills, are not cut, but pulled out ; this, every 

 one says, does not hurt the birds, but there is an un- 

 pleasant tearing sound about the operation, and I think it 

 must make their eyes water." 



Thus are obtained the ostrich feathers which are familiar 

 to us all. 



Every one knows too what ostrich eggs are like ; but it 

 is less generally known that eggs from North Africa are 

 smooth and ivory-like in surface, while those from South 

 Africa have a rough and punctured surface. They are 

 excellent eating ; and though I have never eaten one raw 

 or boiled, a kind friend at the Cape used often to send us 

 cakes prepared with ostrich egg, and very good they 

 were. Each egg is equivalent to about twenty-four hen's 

 eggs. A Dutch farmer once told me that he had eaten 

 two and a half ostrich eggs when he was out in the veldt 

 (open country). He cooked them in the embers of the 

 lire, opening one end and stirring till the contents had a 

 thick, treacly consistency. He said they were excellent 

 when cooked in this way; but he could not finish the 

 third egg. It was like sitting down to a meal of six 

 dozen hen's eggs, but finding himself unable to grapple 

 with the last dozen ! 



The nest is scooped out in the sand, and two or three 

 hen-birds may combine to lay their eggs in it, to the 

 number of about twenty. It is said, and that by several 

 observers, that besides the eggs laid in the nest each hen 

 lays several in the neighbourhood, and that these are 

 broken when the young are hatched and the contents are 

 given them as food. But I am inclined to regard these 



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