OSTRICHES. 135 



tensified by the fact that they always begin so well. 

 For the first three weeks nothing can be more en- 

 couraging than the appearance of the stout, sturdy 

 toddlers ; they eat voraciously and are full of life and 

 spirits, waltzing, in absurd imitation of their elders, to 

 show their joy on being first let out in the morning — 

 the effort usually ending in a comical sprawl on the 

 back. 



Again and again comes the delusive hope that the 

 spell is broken at last ; that the luck has turned, and 

 that this little brood is really going to live. But alas ! 

 — one morning, during that fatal fourth week, you 

 notice that one little head, instead of being held up 

 saucily and independently, is poking forward and 

 downward in a dejected manner with which you are 

 only too well acquainted. You know at once that the 

 owner of that head is doomed, and that it will not be 

 long before most, if not all, of his brethren show the 

 same dreaded symptom. The disease is quite incurable 

 — indeed, I have never known of an ostrich, old or 

 young, recovering from any illness whatever ; and 

 though we tried all possible kinds of medicine, diet, 

 and treatment, resolutely refusing to despair of any 

 case while a spark of life remained, those chicks per- 

 sisted in dying, sometimes at the rate of three or four 

 a day. I was hospital nurse, and so deeply did I take 

 to heart the loss of patient after patient that it became 



a joke with T ; and a plentiful sprinkling of grey 



happening just at this time to make its appearance on 

 my head, he still attributes each silver thread to a little 



