124 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



stowed on him a bill strong enough to break its hard 

 shell, he is only able, by means of an ingenious device, 

 to regale on the interior. He carefully watches till 

 the parent's back is turned, and she is a good distance 

 from the nest ; then, flying up into the air, he drops a 

 stone from a great height with a most accurate aim, 

 and breaks an egg. He makes good use of his quarter 

 of an hour ; and he, no less than the hen ostrich, has 

 had an ample meal by the time the latter returns to 

 the nest. Perhaps to-morrow she will not wander so 

 far away. 



This crow, inveterate egg-stealer though he is, has a 

 most respectable and clerical appearance ; and with his 

 neat suit of black and his little white tie he looks 

 indeed " unco guid." The Boers — possibly on account 

 of this pious exterior — have a legend to the effect that 

 these birds are the " ravens " which fed Elijah. They 

 say that after the birds had carried the meat, a little 

 of the fat remained on their necks ; in commemoration 

 of which their descendants have this one conspicuous 

 white patch on their otherwise black plumage. Num- 

 bers of tortoise-shells, some of immense size, are found 

 about the veldt ; which have been broken in the same 

 manner as the ostrich-eggs, and their inmates devoured, 

 by these crows ; who thus reverse the process by which, 

 some twenty-three centuries ago, the eagle, dropping 

 his tortoise on what seemed to him a convenient stone 

 for his purpose, smashed the bald head of poor ^schylus. 



Among the denizens of the veldt the crows, unfortu- 

 nately, are not the only appreciators of ostrich-eggs : 



