, THE OSTRICH 9 



sparsely, his long legs take him quickly to fresh places, 

 and thus he makes up his proper supply. 



As a captive, few things come amiss to him in the 

 matter of eating. "The digestion of an Ostrich" is a 

 phrase that has passed into a proverb. He deliberately 

 chooses to swallow stones and other hard substances to 

 help "grind" his vegetable food. He will pick up and 

 dispose of the oddest things. " I have known one to 

 swallow a joocket-knife and a buckle," says one traveller, 

 while a naturalist enumerates "brickbats, knives, old 

 shoes, scraps of wood, feathers, and large nails," and 

 another says, " it will devour almost anything from meat 

 to keys and coins." 



Much has been said and believed about the way an 

 Ostrich cares — or rather, does not care — for its eggs. It 

 was quite a widespread belief, in Old Testament days, 

 that the parent-bird had no loving interest in its brood, 

 leaving the eggs to be hatched by the sun, or trampled 

 out of existence by the heavy foot of some passing animal 

 or man. 



What gave rise to this belief seems to have been the 

 sight of eggs lying scattered about, uncovered, round the 

 carefully covered ones in the sandy hollow which serves as 

 the nest. The outer eggs are the odd ones (the hen-bird 

 lays a very large number, and, it would seem, grows 

 careless, like some boys and girls who have more pocket 

 money than they know what to do with). 



Over the eggs that are grouped in the nest the 

 Ostrich is by no means careless, though in such an 

 exposed place as the desert she cannot provide for them 

 in any of the clever ways in which tree-building birds 

 and mountain-haunting birds safeguard theirs. All that 

 is possible is to cover them up with sand, and this she 



