526 STEUTHIONID^ STEUTHIO 



Iris hazel ; bill horn-colour, the edge and base of the upper 

 mandible reddish, which is more marked in the breeding season ; 

 skin of the head, neck and legs lead-grey to whitish-grey ; row 

 of large scales on the tarsus red in the breeding season, horny 

 at other times. No horny shield at the top of the head, and 

 no marked white band at commencement of the heck feathering. 



Height of a large male in the South African Museum 7 feet 

 10 inches; tarsus 18-0 inches. The female is smaller than the 

 male and the plumage is a pale brown throughout except the 

 longer wing-feathers which are dirty white ; bare skin of neck and 

 legs slaty-grey ; bill blackish ; tip black. Height about 6 feet ; 

 tarsus 14-5. 



The nestling is pale straw coloured, the crown being more 

 fulvous, the head and neck variegated with longitudinal black 

 streaks; the back is covered with coarse flattened bristles, each 

 tipping a coming feather ; these are white and black intermingled, 

 giving a variegated appearance to the back. As the bird grows the 

 coarse bristles drop off and the back becomes covered with softer 

 down feathers, mingled black and dirty white. 



Distribution. — The Southern Ostrich is found throughout the 

 greater part of South Africa south of the Cunene and Zambesi 

 Eivers ; north of this line up to about the Eufiji Eiver, in German 

 East Africa, the Ostrich is not found, while further north again two 

 or three other species take the place of our southern bird. 



The Southern Ostrich was formerly found everywhere through- 

 out the dryer and more open country of South Africa ; in the middle 

 of the last century, owing to constant hunting for the sake of its 

 plumes, it had become almost exterminated in Cape Colony, the 

 Orange Free State, and the more settled parts of the Transvaal. 

 About 1870, however. Ostrich farming on a large scale was taken 

 up in Cape Colony, and at the present time wild birds or the 

 descendants of domesticated birds are to be found in a good many 

 districts of the Colony, while in Mashonaland, the Eastern Trans- 

 vaal and in the neighbouring Portuguese border herds of undoubtedly 

 wild birds still exist. This is also the case in the Kalahari Desert 

 and Bechuanaland. 



History and habits. — The Ostrich has naturally been known 

 from the earliest days of Cape settlement ; Kolben's account of it 

 is quaint and fairly accurate, though in it he reports the old story 

 often repeated, that the eggs are hatched by the heat of the sun. 

 He further states that they are " so numerous in the Cape countries 



