1^ 



1 82 SAFARI 



of running game, zebra, antelopes and wildebeests, 

 break a good many when stampeding over the nest. 



Theoretically the ostrich will not come back to its 

 nest once it is disturbed. But natives and old- 

 time African hunters know how to do this skillfully 

 so that the ostrich does not seem to mind. The 

 important point is not to touch the eggs that are to be 

 left. 



Our common domesticated fowl usually sets on 

 twelve eggs and takes twenty-one days for the hatch- 

 ing. The ostrich often completes its setting on as 

 high as twenty-six eggs, from which the chicks emerge 

 after forty-two days. 



The little ones are at a terrible disadvantage at 

 first. Their legs are so long and weak, their necks 

 so slender and willowy, that they are more like intoxi- 

 cated creatures than like infant fowl. They reel 

 and stagger about aimlessly for some days, an easy 

 prey to the first carnivorous animal that happens 

 along. 



Meanwhile, alas, the parents revert to their former 

 vanity. The cock, wings spread and neck curved 

 backward, struts about with a grand air of "How is 

 that for an old man?" while the hens are mincing 

 around him, rising on their toes and settling back, 

 or teetering sidewise with their bills cocked at a 

 deprecating angle, all the while seeming to say to one 

 another: "There, I told you so!" 



