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FACTS ABOUT THE OSTRICH. 
Among the very few polygamous birds that ai'e found in a state of 
nature, the ostrich is one. The male, distinguished by his glossy black 
feathers from the dusky gray female, is generally seen with two or 
three, and frequently as many as five, of the latter. These females lay 
their eggs in one nest, to the number of ten or twelve each, which they 
hatch all together ; the male taking his turn of sitting on them among 
the rest. Between sixty and seventy eggs have been found in one nest; 
and if incubation have begun, a few are most commonly lying round 
the sides of the hole, having been thrown out by the birds on finding 
the nest to contain more than they could conveniently cover. The 
time of incubation is six weeks. 
According to Barrow, — and he is confirmed by later travellers, — the 
eggs of the ostrich are considered a great delicacy. They are prepared 
in a variety of waj^s, but that made use of by the Hottentots is perhaps 
the best : it is simply to bury them in hot ashes, and through a small 
hole made in the upper end to stir the contents continually round till 
they acquire the consistence of an omelet. " Prepared in this manner," 
says Barrow, " we very often, in the course of our long journeys over 
the wilds of Africa, found them an excellent repast. In these eggs are 
frequently discovered a number of small oval-shaped pebbles, about the 
size of a marrow-fat pea, of a pale yellow colour, and exceedingly hard. 
In one were nine, and in another twelve, of such stones." 
The habitat of the ostrich is the sandy desert. His feet are adapted 
for traversing a rough and stony soil, and his stomach for feeding on a 
coarse, scrubby vegetation. He is found both in the north and south of 
Africa; in the Sahara and the Kalahari. He is generally seen, says 
Livingstone, quietly feeding on some spot where no one can approach 
him without being detected by his wary eye, which is placed so high 
that he can see a considerable distance. As the traveller's waggon, 
drawn by a team of patient oxen, rolls along to the windward, he 
fancies there is a design to circumvent him, and he comes rushing down, 
perhaps a mile or more, until so near to the foremost oxen that the 
traveller frequently secures a shot at the silly bird. The moment he 
begins to run, all the game in sight follow his example. The natives, 
if they come upon him in a valley open at both ends, sometimes profit 
