OSTRICHES. iig 



good friends, and quite understood one another; and 

 at all sorts of odd times — watching for those golden 

 opportunities when his tyrant was safely out of sight 

 at the further end of the eainp — he would come down 

 to the fence and look out for me, and I would bring him 

 a good feed of mealies. 



As a father. Darby was no less devoted than he had 

 formerly been as a husband; and to please him we 

 allowed his chicks to remain with him, and set the 

 whole family free to roam where they liked about the 

 veldt; breaking through the usual rule, which is to 

 take the little birds from the parents when two or three 

 ■days old, and herd them near the house. For they 

 never become as tame when brought up by the old ones 

 as when accustomed from the first to human society. 

 These poor little birds, I am sorry to say, did not 

 flourish under parental guardianship ; indeed, it was 

 not long before they were all dead. For their well- 

 meaning, but over-zealous father, apparently thinking 

 no veldt good enough for them, kept them continually 

 on the move ; and, in his perpetual search for " fresh 

 woods and pastures new," took them such long distances 

 that he literally walked them as well as himself to 

 death. Not many days after the last chick's departure, 

 Darby's own poor body, worn to a skeleton by these 

 restless wanderings, following on six weeks of incuba- 

 tion, was foxind on the veldt. 



When, as sometimes happens, one solitary chick is 

 reared at the house, it becomes absurdly and often 

 inconveniently tame. A friend of ours, on returning 



