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REPORT 
greatest care to get within shot of the bird owing to 
its constant vigilance, and its great power of vision. 
Its wings are very short, and almost useless, as aids to 
locomotion ; but the muscles of its legs are extremely 
powerful, enabling it to run with a swiftness equalling 
that of the greyhound or racehorse. 
The male is generally black in colour when full- 
grown, and the female brown. Both have usually 
white feathers in the wings and tail, being those 
for which the bird is principally valued. At one time 
its brains were considered a great delicacy, and like 
peacock's tongues were valued more from their rarity 
and the difficulty of procuring the dish than from their 
flavour. Hundreds of ostriches were slaughtered that 
their brains might furnish a choice dish for the luxurious 
table of Heliogabalus. Their flesh, when young, is 
considered palatable. 
In northern Africa, at Fezzan, ostriches are kept in 
stables, and three crops of feathers are taken in two 
years. It takes about eight months for a crop of 
feathers to come to perfection. In Fezzan, many of 
the natives subsist by hunting the wild birds. The 
Arabs scare away the birds from their nest, and dig a 
hole in the ground, where they place a loaded gun with 
a slow-burning match. When the ostriches take their 
place on the nest, the gun kills one or both birds, 
which are found dead beside the eggs next morning. 
Ostriches are gregarious and polygamous. Sometimes 
three or four females will join in depositing their eggs 
in one nest, as many as fifty-one eggs having been 
found together in one place. It is said that a number 
of eggs are left outside the nest, to serve as food for 
the young birds when they are hatched. 
