THE OSTHICH. 
229 
nest^ in whicli she covers from fourteen to eighteen eggs, 
and regularly sits on them in the same manner as the com- 
mon fowl does on her chickens, the male occasionally re- 
lieving the female^/^ Many of the natives of the country 
between Tripoli and Mourzouk subsist by hunting ostriches : 
they procure the greatest number during the breeding sea- 
son. It is the custom in some of the towns to keep tame 
ostriches in a stable, and in two years they take three cut- 
tings of their feathers. Captain Lyon believes that most of 
the white feathers sent to Europe are from tame birds, as in 
such wild birds as he has seen, the plumes were so ragged 
and torn, that not above half-a-dozen perfect ones could be 
found : the black feathers, being shorter and more flexible, 
are for the most part good. 
The eggs of tlie ostrich w^eigh three pounds each and are 
good for food, but it is chiefly as ornaments that they are em- 
ployed. How many a child has w^ondered at so large an egg 
when visiting a strange house ! In the East they are much 
used as ornaments, being sometimes hung up in places of 
worship along with lamps. As the learned Harmerf re- 
marks. Dr. "Richard Chandler mistook them for ivory, in his 
* Captain Lyon, * Travels in Northern Africa/ p. 77. 
t Observations on divers Passages of Scripture, vol. iv. p. 336 (ed. 1787)' 
