OSTRICHES. 133 



egg, he seems to swell out, and looks so large that you 

 wonder how he can possibly have been packed away 

 in such a small space ; and I am quite sure that the 

 task of replacing him in the shell would as far surpass 

 the powers of " all the king's horses and all the king's 

 men," as did the reintegration of Humpty Dumpty. 



Occasionally — and even at this time and distance it 

 is hardly to be recalled without a shudder — the incu- 

 bator would contain a bad egg. Imagine all the horrors 

 of a bad hen's egg, multiplied by twenty-four ! The 

 whole drawer would be so pervaded by the odour that 

 it was difficult for some time to discover the actual 

 offender ; and when at last it revealed itself by an un- 

 canny moisture exuding through the shell, an amount 

 of courage and caution was required for its removal 

 and safe depositing outside, which suggested very flat- 

 tering comparisons of one's own conduct with that of a 

 soldier winning the V.O. by carrying away a live shell. 



An incautious friend of T 's was too closely in- 

 vestigating a doubtful ostrich-egg, when it exploded 

 with a loud report. He was an old gentleman, with a 

 beautiful white beard ; and his condition, as described 

 by T , who — luckily from a safe distance — wit- 

 nessed the accident, is best left to the imagination. 

 Suffice it to say that an immediate and prolonged bath 

 was imperative, and that a whole suit of clothes had 

 to be destroyed. 



In the days when chicks were so valuable, people 

 who did not possess incubators sometimes had recourse 

 to a strange way of hatching those eggs w^hich, during 



