August i, 1885.] The Australasian Scientific Magazine. 25 
by irrigation from the Colorado River could be made an oasis. The 
second division is a series of valleys and plains, with sheep and cattle 
grazing, and splendid arable land. The third section, between the foot 
hills and the ocean, consists of mesas and valleys watered by the San Diego 
Sweet Water, San Louis Key, and other rivers. The Bay of San Diego is 
twelve miles long by two wide, with safe entrance and anchorage for large 
vessels. The climate is nearest perfection of perhaps any. Four miles 
beyond the new town of San Diego is the Western Dominion of the 
Californian Southern Railway National City, where the largest terminal 
grounds of any line of the United States have been prepared, covering an 
area of 225 acres. All the buildings for a trans-Continental line have been 
already constructed, though hardly warranted, as the California Southern 
extends as yet but 126 miles. But San Diegons look forward confidently 
to a junction with the Atlantic and Pacific. The line of division between 
California and the Mexican Peninsula of Lower California is fifteen miles 
south of San Diego ; the distance by water to San Francisco, 500 miles. 
Anaheim, the oldest of the Coast Colonies was also selected for ostrich 
ranching, and with the same successful result. 
From the New York Tribune (1883), the following interesting account of 
a visit to an ostrich farm near Anaheim, by Mr. W. G. Le Due is taken: — 
“ My attention was called to the profit as well as practicability of ostrich 
breeding in this country some years ago by a young gentleman fresh from 
college, who has since taken orders in the Episcopalian Church, and who 
prepared for me a statement of the case as it then stood, showing, con- 
clusively enough to warrant the experiment, that an industry of importance 
might easily be built up in various parts of the United States. Having, 
therefore, recommended the business, and tried without avail to have the 
General Government do something to promote ostrich raising, it may be 
understood that I felt interest enough to go out of my way to visit him in 
his new home near Anaheim. Our first visit was to the incubator. A 
broad shelf on one side contained about fifty ostrich eggs, and any number 
of eggs of the brown Leghorn chicken (a favourite strain on Californian 
poultry farms). The incubator has been used for hatching those eggs prior 
to trusting the more valuable ostrich eggs to its care. These ostrich eggs 
are truly wonderful seen for the first time. Elliptical in form, they weigh 
about three and a half pounds, measuring in circumference eighteen inches 
by nineteen inches, and hold equal to a quart measure. The colour is 
creamy white, the shell porous, and pitted all over equally. Of these 
sixteen eggs had been put in the incubator up to the time of my visit 
(June 29th), the remaining eggs and future layings being reserved for the 
Halsteed incubator, which made such a reputation in the Cape Colonies 
for hatching ostrich eggs. The sixteen eggs were placed in the incubator 
on May 14th, 15th, and 16th, and the period of incubation had nearly 
passed, for the chickens were moving in their shells ready for advent into 
Californian life. One had come already as avant courier , and is a beauty 
of its kind, covered with speckled brown downy feathers, except on head, 
neck, and legs. Only a day old, he is wild, shy, and active as an antelope, 
and the size of a full grown Leghorn hen. Restless, uneasy, and in con- 
stant motion, with enquiring eyes he awaits his tardier companions to join 
him in his feather producing career. Preparatory to any nourishing food, 
he had placed before him a tray of small gravel stones and crushed sea- 
shells ; subsequent to this grinding tonic he had a handful of chopped 
alfalfa (Lucerne). This lays the foundation for a meal of cracked com and 
water, and after that the ostrich was considered on the straight road to 
