THE OSTRICH. 113 



Eggs outside the Nest. 



Often, during incubation, an egg or two will be found lying 

 outside the nest. Most authorities maintain that the birds put 

 them out designedly, and that such eggs are used as food for the 

 newly-hatched chicks, being broken for this purpose by the 

 parent birds. 



There is no truth in either contention. These eggs are 

 rolled out accidentally, and if replaced will not be rejected, as I 

 know from having frequently marked and replaced them by 

 way of experiment. They may be quite fresh, in some stage of 

 incubation, or rotten. There is no truth whatever in the state- 

 ment that the newly-hatched chicks are fed upon them ; but 

 I have seen chicks a few days old greedily eating the dung 

 of their parents, which often, after sitting, is in the form of 

 small pellets. In the earlier days of Ostrich-farming I have 

 seen little incubator-hatched chicks supplied with soft cow-dung 

 and beaten-up Ostrich egg, but nothing of the sort is done now ; 

 they are fed with succulent green food, which is enough for all 

 purposes. If left to nature, and allowed to run with their 

 parents, they thrive perhaps better than under any other con- 

 ditions; only they become very wild, and are liable to be killed 

 by hawks, jackals, and other animals. 



The Hatching of the Chicks. 



If an egg should be broken in the nest, the old birds eat 

 it, shell and all, as they will often do when the first chick or 

 two hatch out. This habit has no doubt given rise to the 

 erroneous belief, expressed by one of the authorities, that the 

 cock breaks the chicks out — cracking the shell with his breast, 

 shaking the chick loose, and then swallowing the membrane. 

 The chicks hatch out unaided, and though no doubt the move- 

 ments of the parent on the eggs do occasionally help to free a 

 chick which has already pecked through and cracked the shell 

 (as I have seen), there is no design in these movements, and no 

 need for help. 



If sitting begins after the hen has laid her full complement of 

 eggs, naturally all fertile eggs will have sufficient time to hatch. 

 Even if she lays one or two after beginning to sit, still all may 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. I., March, 1897. i 



