AFRICA'S GREATEST BIRD 



Mr. Roosevelt's Visit to Sir Alfred Pease's Ostrich Farm — The Story of This Wonder- 

 ful Bird. 



While riding on the cowcatcher along the Uganda Railroad, to get a 

 better view of the surroundings than the clo'sed coaches would afford, Mr. 

 Roosevelt had a splendid opportunity to see almost all the various kinds of 

 small and big game that crowd the British game reserve on both sides of the 

 road. Among these were also seen the huge black ostriches so characteristic 

 to the animal life of East Africa. The Colonel did not fail to avail himself 

 of this excellent opportunity to see this interesting bird at close range and 

 to study its habits. 



Some of the European residents in tropical Africa have engaged in ostrich 

 farming, and Sir Alfred Pease, who royally entertained our ex-President on 

 his magnificent ranch, located in the middle of the beautiful Kapiti Plains, 

 has a large ostrich farm on his big estate. While Mr. Roosevelt cares more 

 for wild animals and the exciting hunt of dangerous beasts than for the tame 

 ones, still he eagerly embraced this rare chance to inspect an industry which 

 bids fair to become an important factor in the development of Africa and also 

 has proved a success in America. 



He found the birds in an enclosure comprising several hundred acres, 

 so as to leave them sufficient space to indulge in their natural habits of 

 running along the sandy ground. About three hundred birds were at the time 

 on the farm, half of them being young ones, while the rest already wore the 

 so-much-coveted plumage which makes this bird so valuable a possession. 



The native keepers of the birds entertained the American visitor with 

 interesting stories of their habits, most of them having hunted and captured 

 ostriches in the desert and on the plains. 



"The ostrich,'' one of the Swahili servants said, "has a wary eye and it 

 is very difficult to approach him when he is feeding in the wilderness. But 

 he is a silly bird. When pursued by the hunters he starts tO' run in the same 

 direction as his pursuers and never turns, apparently hoping to- outdo them 

 by his speed, while by going in another direction he could easily escape." 



The Colonel noticed that the ostrich's pace, w^hen feeding quietly within 

 its enclosure, measured about twenty inches, and' when walking but not feed- 

 ing, it was six inches more. A keeper chased one of the birds around and 



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