122 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



and neck on the ground ; then, making himself as flat 

 as possible, he would " squirm " out, not without some 

 difficulty, under the lowest wire of the fence. It was 

 impossible to keep him in ; and he was left to his own 

 devices, calmly regarded as a necessary evil, and 

 allowed to be as great a nuisance as he liked. 



But poor Jackie soon ceased from troubling his 

 end, as may well be imagined, being brought about by 

 no other cause than his own moral obliquity. One day 

 he wandered down to the river, where some Kaffir 

 women were washing clothes ; their children, a group 

 of little animated nude bronzes, playing near them. 

 One little fellow, who was eating, was of course 

 instantly spied out by the covetous Jackie ; who rushed 

 to kick him, but in so doing tumbled down in the rocky 

 bed of the river, and broke his own leg. The inevit- 

 able result followed, and Jackie, like all other broken- 

 legged ostriches, had to be killed. 



The hen ostrich lays every alternate day ; and if, for 

 each egg laid, one is taken from the nest, she will con- 

 tinue laying until she has produced from twenty to 



thirty. One, which belonged to T , laid sixty eggs 



without intermission. If no eggs are taken away, the 

 hen leaves off laying as soon as she has from fifteen to 

 twenty ; the latter being the greatest number that can 

 be satisfactorily covered by the birds. The surplus eggs 

 are placed in incubators. It is best not to give much 

 artificial food to the birds while sitting ; as, if overfed, 

 they become restless, and are liable to desert the nest. 



Every morning and evening the nest, or rather the 



