WA TER-BIRDS — OSTRICH 3 1 



basking on the sandbanks of the Nile, but is also believed by the natives to warn 

 these sluggish saurians of impending danger. In the time of Herodotus, by whom 

 it was first described, the black-backed courser was already a familiar bird, well 

 known by the name of trochilus, a name now transferred to the humming-birds. 

 Its eggs are buried by the female in the heated sand of the banks of the Nile, 

 where they are in due course hatched by the sun's rays. It is stated that the 

 bird keeps them moist by first wetting her wings in the river, and then drying 

 them above the spot where the clutch is laid. During incubation the eggs become 

 much bleached. 



Another bird known to Herodotus is the handsome but ill- 



flavoured Egyptian goose {Ghenalopex aagyptiacci), which ranges over 

 the greater part of tropical Africa, and is likewise the common wild goose of Cape 

 Colony. This bird was tamed by the ancient Egyptians, and although not regarded 

 as exactly sacred, was dedicated to Set, the father of Osiris. Found alike on the 

 rivers as well as on lakes and pools, it nests either in swamps, on dry ground, on 

 ledges of cliffs, or in trees. When flying, the gander utters a loud, harsh, rattling 

 sound, produced in a bony capsule on the left side of the wind-pipe. Together 

 with a South American species, this goose differs from the typical geese by its 

 habit of breeding in trees. In size it is rather smaller than an ordinary wild 

 goose ; while in colour it is pale yellowish brown, passing into rusty brown above, 

 and marked with thin wavy lines. The face and a spot on the breast are dark 

 reddish brown, the wings, with a green and violet reflection, have a large white 

 patch in the middle, the face is black, and the feet and beak are red. 



In former days ostriches (Struthio camxelus), belonging to the 



typical northern species, or race, which lays eggs with smooth and 

 polished shells, abounded in the deserts of Algeria and other districts of northern 

 Africa, and so recently as the conquest of Algeria by the French there existed 

 numerous troops of these birds, which visited the oasis in the neighbourhood of 

 Tell. They resorted to that spot not only to feed, but also to dust themselves in 

 hollows protected from the wind, where the water of the winter rains accumulates, 

 and where sufficient moisture remains in summer to produce a considerable growth 

 of shrubs, especially pistachios, on the nuts of which the ostriches mainly subsisted. 

 Gradually the birds retreated southward of the high plateaus to the desert, on 

 account of being hunted by the officers of the Arab troops and the natives. It 

 thus eventually became necessary to travel scores of miles to the south of In Salah 

 and into Mauritania before encountering the remaining troops of these birds. 

 That ostriches were formerly numerous in these regions is attested by the fact 

 that the Arabs have distinctive names for the two sexes, and likewise for birds of 

 different ages. The natives were accustomed to capture them by fixing snares on 

 the pistachio-bushes, or by shooting them as they came to pick up the nuts ; but 

 the favourite method was to hunt them on horseback, although, in spite of the 

 speed and endurance of the Arab horses, success was only ensured by slipping 

 slughi greyhounds to harass the birds and bar their return to their nests, or by 

 having relays of horsemen. About the year 1850 seventy-two ostriches, of which 

 thirty were cocks, were killed during eight hunts in the first year, but in 1852 only 

 live were killed in one hunt. By 1857 the authorities were seriously concerned at 



