220 
REPORT 
sufficient to prevent their straying ; their pugnacious 
habits, and the difficulty of yarding them when re- 
quired are the great obstacles to their successful 
management. With care, no doubt, these obstacles 
•can be lessened or overcome. If the bird could be 
established in the interior of the continent, I have 
little doubt that it would increase rapidly and become 
as numerous as it is in those parts of Africa where it 
is found in a wild state. Many parts of the interior 
would, I think, be better suited to this bird than 
Longerenong. Probably the sandy heaths of the 
Lower Wimmera around Lake Hindmarsh, or the arid 
plains on the Darling or Cooper's Creek, where the 
emu abounds, would be found more similar to its 
native habitat, and better suited to the habits of the 
bird. 
There is a somewhat curious misapprehension in the 
popular mind as to habits of the ostrich. It is 
generally supposed that the bird covers its eggs in the 
sand, and that they are hatched by the heat of the 
sun, and some passages of Scripture not properly 
understood are supposed to countenance this error. In 
the Book of Job it is said that the ostrich " leave th 
her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the 
dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, 
or that the wild beast may break them." This 
habit of the ostrich, of covering up her eggs in the 
dust is not, as is commonly supposed, that they may 
be hatched, but to hide them until incubation com- 
mences. I have found it to occur in one instance, 
where the nest was on a sand-hill, the eggs being 
covered up by the birds until the number was com- 
pleted. After incubation began the nest was scarcely 
