REPRODUCTION OF THE OSTRICH IN EUROPE. 49 
legitimately predicted that domestication will go on side by side with 
reproduction. On this latter occasion, for instance, the pair exhibited 
so little of their former savage disposition, that I was able during six 
or seven days together, to pass a quarter of an hour or so in the park, 
close to the nest, without disturbing the birds in any way. The one 
which sat betrayed no signs of agitation; and the other approached 
me evidently with pacific intentions. M.Desmeure, who has displayed. 
on this occasion the same zeal as before, and who did not, so to say, 
lose sight of the ostriches, thinks that atter three or four broods have 
been raised, this bird will reproduce itself as readily, and with as little 
trouble, as the common fowls of the farm-yard. 
The two ostriches bern in 1859, are magnificent birds, and are 
almost as large as their parents. Nothing as. yet indicates their sex 
this only manifesting itself at the adult age. 
I have just learned that the young bird which came last, and, in a 
manner, artificially, into the world, did not live beyond a few days. 
Only five young ostriches therefore remain as the produce of this 
year, but these are perfectly well-formed, and they commence already 
to assume the shape and character of their race, of which, it should 
be stated, not the slightest sign was apparent at their birth. On 
quitting the egg, for example, the young ostrich has both the neck 
and feet remarkably short. 
In presenting the above communication of Prince Demidoff, M. 
Isidore Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire re-called the fact, that two years pre- 
viously he had had the honour to communicate a note, by M. le 
Maréchal Vaillant, on a reproduction of the ostrich obtained by M. 
Hardy, at Hamma in Algeria. M. Hardy has had since a great 
number of young broods, some of which have produced a second 
generation. Before the broods obtained, however, at Prince Demi- 
doff’s establishment at San-Donato, by the care of M. Desmeure, not 
a single example was known of the reproduction of the ostrich in 
Europe. In the north of France, and especially in the menagerie of 
the Paris Museum, ostrich eggs are frequently laid, but these, hitherto, 
have always been unproductive. In the south of France, at Méze 
near Montpellier, M. Moquin-Tandon proved in one case the fecunda- 
tion of the egg, but this did net become hatched. 
When M. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, consequently, called attention to 
the advantages which might accrue from the acclimation in Europe of 
Voz. VI. D 
