110 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



whites, blacks, tails, feminas, chicken-feathers, etc., 

 according to length, colour, and quality, I enlivened 

 the monotony of his work by reading aloud. 



Sometimes the white feathers would be dirty — for 

 there is nothing an ostrich likes better than sitting 

 down to cool himself in the muddiest dam he can find 

 — then it was necessary to wash them, dip them into 

 strong raw starch, and shake them in the hot sun, beat- 

 ing two bundles of them together till quite dry. The 

 starch makes them look very pretty and fluffy; and 

 young ladies in England who economically wash their 

 own feathers would find it a great improvement. 

 Ostrich-feathers are quite tabooed by ladles in South 

 Africa ; they are too common, every Kaffir or Hottentot 

 wearing one in his dirty, battered hat. 



If an ostrich-feather is held upright, its beautiful 

 form — graceful as the frond-like branch of the cocoa- 

 nut palm, which it somewhat resembles — is at once seen 

 to be perfectly even and equal on both sides, its stem 

 dividing it exactly in the centre ; whereas the stems of 

 other feathers are all more or less on one side. The 

 ancient Egyptians, observant of this — as of everything 

 in nature — chose the ostrich-feather as the sacred em- 

 blem of truth and justice, setting it upon the head of 

 Thmei, goddess of truth. 



After a good rain, ostriches soon begin to make 

 nests ; the males become very savage, and their note of 

 defiance — hrooming, as it is called by the Dutch — is 

 heard in all directions. The bird inflates his neck in a 

 cobra-like fashion, and gives utterance to three deep 



