OSTRICHES. 105 



A young ostrich's rough, bristly, untidy-looking 

 " chicken-feathers " are plucked for the first time when 

 he is nine months old ; they are stiff and narrow, with 

 very pointed tips, and their ugly appearance gives no 

 promise of future beauty. They do not look as if they 

 could be used for anything but making feather brooms. 

 In the second year they are rather more like what 

 ostrich-feathers ought to be, though still very narrow 

 and pointed ; and not until their wearer is plucked for 

 the third time have they attained their full width and 

 softness. 



During the first two years the sexes cannot be dis- 

 tinguished, the plumage of all being of a dingy drab 

 mixed with black ; the latter hue then begins to pre- 

 dominate more and more in the male bird with each 

 successive moulting, until at length no drab feathers 

 are left. At five years the bird has attained maturity ; 

 the plumage of the male is then of a beautiful glossy 

 black, and that of the female of a soft grey, both 

 having white wings and tails. In each wing there are 

 twenty-four long white feathers, which, when the wing 

 is spread out, hang gracefully round the bird like 

 a lovely deep fringe -just as I have sometimes in 

 Brazilian forests, seen fringes of large and delicate 

 fern-fronds hanging, high overhead, from the branches 

 of some giant tree. 



The ostrich's body is literally " a bag of bones ; " and 

 the enormously-developed thighs, which are the only 

 fleshy part of the bird, are quite bare, their coarse skin 

 being of a peculiarly ugly blue-grey colour. The little 



