398 TRAVELSIN 
Inftead of removing the eggs all at once, he 
takes only one or tv/o, convinced that the fe- 
raale, who never begins to fit till £he has com- 
pleted her number, will lay again. Two days 
after he Vv'ill repeat his theft. In fhort, if he 
plunder with addrefs and precaution, he may 
caufe her to lay as many as fifty ; and fome- 
times even, when the neil is occupied by two 
or three oftriches affociaied together, and fit- 
ting in company, as I have feen and already 
mentioned, he may procure a ftill greater 
number. 
A naturalift unacquainted with thefe fads 
may eafily be led into an error. Accordingly, 
when a favage tells him that he has taken from 
an oftricli s nefi: fixty or eighty eggs, and per- 
haps more, he ought thus to account for the 
circumftance, and not imagine that there is 
any great variation in the number laid by dif- 
ferent individuals of this fpecies. But I return 
to my camp. 
Scarcely had w^e halted at the bottom of the 
mountains, when my Houzouanas haftened 
to climb them, in order to difcover the fires of 
their abfent friends, and to kindle others to in- 
fprm them vvhere they might be found. Their 
figaais. 
