152 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



that the food, as soon as swallowed, tumbled out again 

 through the slit in his throat. Nothing daunted, 

 however, and apparently insensible to pain, the feathered 

 Tantalus continued to feed ; wondering no doubt why, 

 having eaten so much, he remained hungry. Thanks 



to T 's care, this bird, a rare exception to the general 



rule of wounded ostriches, actually recovered. 



Talking of the ostrich's food-passage, it is rather a 

 curious sight to watch the progress of a large bone, or 

 of a good beakful of mealies, as it travels down the 

 long throat of the bird. During its journey, the large, 

 slowly-moving lump is seen to make the circuit of the 

 whole neck, and while passing round the back of the 

 latter it looks comical indeed. Queer things sometimes 

 find their way down this tortuous passage ; the exces- 

 sive queerness of some of them giving rise to the fre- 

 quent boast of those persons fortunately able to eat 

 anything, fearless of consequences, that they " have the 

 digestion of an ostrich." But those miscellaneous 



o 



collections of old bones, glass and china, stones, jewel- 

 lery, hardware, and odds and ends of all sorts, with 

 which the creature stores his interior, till one is 

 reminded of Mark Twain's " solid dog," fed on paving- 

 stones far from showing that an ostrich has a good 

 digestion, are necessary to prevent his having a very 

 bad one. They are, of course, simply his teeth, the 

 millstones which grind his food ; only they are situated 

 in his stomach instead of in his mouth, and, on an 

 immensely-magnified scale, they only perform the work 

 of those grains of sand with which the little cage-bird 



