388 OSTRICH. 



tip ; irides hazel ; both eyelids furnished with hairs ; the head and 

 greatest part of the neck are bare of feathers; flesh-coloured, here 

 and there beset with a few scattered hairs; the lower parts of the 

 neck and body are covered with black feathers, which are singularly 

 loose in their webs, and totally unlike those of any other bird ; the 

 quill feathers, and those of the tail, perfectly white, some of them 

 here and there fringed, or tipped with black, and are long and 

 beautifully waved in shape; on each wing are two spurs, about an 

 inch in length ; and on the breast a callous, bare, and hard sub- 

 stance, serving the bird to rest on, when first it bends forwards, to 

 sit on the ground ; the thighs and sides of the body are naked ; the 

 legs strong, of a greyish brown, with two toes only, the outer one 

 very short, and without a claw. 



The female has the general plumage ash-colour; but the wings 

 and tail are black. 



This bird inhabits Africa, the parts of Asia adjoining, and several 

 Islands in the neighbourhood; and in great plenty about the Cape 

 of Good Hope ; found also in the low districts north of Abyssinia, 

 but very rarely within the actual limits of the country. The egg 

 corresponds with the size, being full as big as a child's head, of a 

 white colour like ivory, all over full of minute indentations; the 

 empty shell frequently weighs twelve ounces, is six inches and a half 

 deep, and holds five pints and a quarter of liquid.* It is a poly- 

 gamous bird, one male is generally seen with two or three, and even 

 as many as five females, which lay their eggs in concert, to the 

 number of ten or twelve each, which they all hatch together, the 

 male taking his turn of sitting among them ; between 60 and 70 

 eggs have been found in one nest ;f and the time of incubation six 

 weeks. For want of knowing the Ostrich to be polygamous, it is 



* Sparrm. Voij. ii 120. 119. f Thnnb. Trav. v. pp. 10. 53. 142. Barrow, 



Tr. Afr. p. 94. Kolben says the same, and that he has seen them hatching their eggs 

 hundreds of times, and driven them off for the sake of the eggs, one of which is a meal for 

 three or four persons, and said to be very good. 



