THE GUASO NYERO 353 



wings spread and necks curved backward, strutting and 

 dancing. Their mincing, springy run is far faster than, 

 when the bird is near by, it seems. The neck is held back 

 in running, and when at speed the stride is twenty-one feet. 

 No game is more wary or more difficult to approach. I 

 killed both a cock and a hen which I found the naturalists 

 valued even more than a cock. We got them by stumbling 

 on the nest, which contained eleven huge eggs, and was 

 merely a bare spot in the sand, surrounded by grass two feet 

 high; the bird lay crouched, with the neck flat on the ground. 

 When we accidentally came across the nest the cock was on 

 it, and I failed to get him as he ran. The next day we 

 returned, and dismounted before we reached the near 

 neighborhood of the nest. Then I advanced, cautiously, 

 my rifle at the ready. It seemed impossible that so huge a 

 bird could lie hidden in such scanty cover, but not a sign 

 did we see until, when we were sixty yards off, the hen, 

 which this time was on the nest, rose, and I killed her 

 at sixty yards. Even this did not make the cock desert the 

 nest; and on a subsequent day I returned, and after missing 

 him badly, I killed him at eighty-five yards; and glad I 

 was to see the huge black-and-white bird tumble in the 

 dust. He weighed two hundred and sixty-three pounds 

 and was in fine plumage. The hen weighed two hundred 

 and forty pounds. Her stomach and gizzard, in addition 

 to small, white quartz pebbles, contained a mass of vege- 

 table substance; the bright-green leaves and twig tips of a 

 shrub, a kind of rush with jointed stem and tuberous root, 

 bean pods from different kinds of thorn-trees, and the 

 leaves and especially the seed vessels of a bush, the seed 

 vessels being enclosed in cases or pods so thorny that they 

 pinched our fingers, and made us wonder at the bird's 

 palate. Cock and hen brood the eggs alternately. We found 

 the heart and liver of the ostrich excellent eating; the eggs 

 were very good also. As the cock died it uttered a kind 

 of loud, long-drawn grunting boom that was almost a roar. 

 Its beautiful white wing plumes were almost unworn. 



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