228 NATURAL HISTORY. 



.shores of the Red Sea for this purpose. A well-directed charge of swan-shot aimed at the necks of the 

 .stooping birds will often lay several low at once. Another plan of capturing the Ostrich by the Bush- 

 man may be noted. On finding the nest, he removes the eggs and seats himself in it, when he is, able to 

 shoot the bird on her return with his poisoned arrow before she can recover her surprise at the intru- 

 sion. In Sennaar Ostriches are occasionally brought down by a kind of boomerang. In Arabia the 

 birds are killed on the nest, the hen sitting very close and cowering over the eggs, with neck out- 

 stretched, and its eye fixed motionless on the approaching enemy. When killed, it is laid upon the 

 eggs, and the hunter, having buried the blood of his first victim, lies in wait till sunset for the return 

 of the male, when the latter is also slaughtered. 



The Ostrich appears to be a very omnivorous bird, and one which died in the Zoological Gardens 

 .in all probability owed its fate to 9|d. worth of copper money which it had swallowed. In a wild 

 state it also swallows quantities of stones, sand, bones, and even pieces of metal, which are picked up 

 indiscriminately ; its natural food is also very varied, consisting of seeds, berries, fruit, grass, leaves, 

 beetles, locusts, small birds and animals, snakes and lizards. Dr. Livingstone estimates the rate at 

 which the Ostrich travels at about twenty-six miles an hour, reckoning each stride at twelve feet, 

 but Canon Tristram measured the bound when the bird is at full speed as from twenty-two to twenty- 

 eight feet. The cry is likened by Canon Tristram to the hoarse lowing of an ox in pain, and by 

 other observers to the roar of a lion ; in the Scriptures it is all-uded to as a " wailing." 



The Ostrich is gregarious, and appears to be more so in South Africa than in North Africa, 

 where it is seen in little companies of from four to six individuals, the scarcity of food having, perhaps, 

 something to do with the different habits in the latter locality. It is also a polygamous bird, each 

 cock bird associating with three or four hens, all of which lay their eggs in one large nest scooped out 

 in the sand, and relieve each other by turns at incubation, the male taking his turn at sitting as well 

 as his wives. In the breeding season the males fight vigorously for the possession, of the females. 

 Though each hen bird lays a large number of eggs in the nest many more are dropped in the neighbour- 

 hood, and Mr. Layard states that these are supposed to be broken by the parents as soon as the young 

 are hatched, and serve for their first meals. The little ones come into the world under a certain amount 

 of risk, for the cock bird often becomes impatient towards the end of the period of incubation, which 

 lasts about six weeks, and has been observed to lean with his chest upon an egg, crack it, then take it 

 up in his beak by the membrane inside the egg, and shake it violently until the young bird dropped 

 out, when he would swallow the membrane, and repeat the operation on another. 



The Ostrich was called the " Camel-bird" by the ancients, and its peculiar legs and head, with the 

 great eyelashes shading its large eyes, were doubtless the cause of its being considered by Aristotle 

 .and Pliny to be partly bird and partly quadruped ; and it resembles the Camel, not only in frequenting 

 the same localities, but in many other points. The hard pad-like covering to the breast-bone of the 

 Ostrich is analogous to the large callous pad on the Camel's chest, both the bird and the animal re- 

 posing on their chests when they lie down. The diaphragm is also largely developed in the Ostrich. 

 Nor does the resemblance to the Camel end here, for even in life there is evidence from modern 

 European travellers of a likeness sufficient to account for the ancient name. Mr. Palgrave met with 

 Ostriches in North-west Arabia, and writes : " When we saw them far ahead, running in a long line 

 one after the other, we almost took them for a string of scared Camels." Again, the Rev. A. C. 

 Smith, in his "Attractions of the Nile," observes as follows : " When seen at a distance moving over 

 the desert, the camels struck me as resembling in a most remarkable degree their desert companion 

 the Ostrich. It may seem strange to say that a bird and a quadruped have the same profile, yet such 

 is undoubtedly the fact with these two denizens of the same sandy wilds ; both hold their heads very 

 forward, with necks much elevated and stretched out ; then the long legs of the Camel are all near 

 together, whereas those of the Ostrich are wide apart, and the result is that, seen at a distance, these 

 two very different creatures might be easily mistaken for each other." 



In the same work on Ostriches and Ostrich-farming, from which so much of the above information 

 has been derived, is a full account of the last-named pursuit, which has become a considerable branch 

 of industry. The value of the plumes is in these days principally appreciated by ladies, but in 

 old times it was the male sex that mostly used them as adornments. Not to mention the Prince of 

 Wales's feathers of England, a badge adopted by the Plantagenets, the feathers of the Ostrich are 



