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egg with a gallon flour bucket by its side. The 

 native cook had just slid the cake into our hot-stone 

 oven. It was just a case of putting the whole oper- 

 ation on a gigantic scale, with cup and egg nearly 

 forty times their conventional size. 



Another time when we were held up at night by 

 storm we stopped for shelter and a bite. I had not 

 yet been in Africa long enough to learn the ways of 

 the country. After we were seated in the dim rays of 

 a single oil lamp that flickered in the draft y room, 

 our host removed a trapdoor from a corner of the 

 floor and lifted up what appeared to be a large white 

 rock. Taking his hammer from the shelf, he went 

 out and could be heard chopping away at something. 

 Presently he returned and laid a shining hard-boiled 

 ostrich egg on a plate. He sliced the egg and served 

 it on green leaves, with salt and pepper and hard 

 ship's biscuit. Rarely had anything tasted so good. 



The proper number of eggs under a setting ostrich 

 is approximately sixteen. I suspect the ostrich 

 never counts them but depends on the way they feel 

 imder her; for she will try a nestful for a while and 

 kick out one at a time until those left feel right. 



As a matter of fact, the nest life of an ostrich is 

 just about as ridiculous as a good deal of the rest of 

 its life. Both sexes set. The male, being of a darker 

 hue, takes the night watches. I suppose he is quite 

 invisible to prowling animals in the dark. The grey 



