OSTRICH FARMING. 
101 
tion regarding their habits and the natural mode of 
incubation. The male birds are very ferocious during 
the breeding season, and it is dangerous to approach 
them. Mr. Douglas has had several very narrow 
escapes. They sit alternately, the male at night 
grazing and guarding the female. During the day- 
time, the time of the male bird going on the nest varies 
during the period of incubation, as also does the time 
between the female leaving the nest and the male 
taking her place, the exposure and cooling being pro- 
bably regulated by the temperature of the incubation 
fever at different stages. All these apparently trivial 
minutiae are yet matters of considerable importance 
in artificial incubation, and only to be acquired by 
patient watching and judicious application of the 
principles involved in machine-hatching. “ Black 
Kloof,” which adjoins Hilton on the N.E., is on the 
trap conglomerate — a purely sweetveldt farm — with 
many of the bitter and aromatic shrubs of the Karroo. 
Here Mr. George White, my brother-in-law, has 23 
young ostriches in an enclosure of 500 acres, thriving 
well, in good condition, and yielding feathers of 
excellent quality. As a rule he gives no artificial food ; 
they thrive and fatten on the scanty scrub and sweet 
grass in the enclosure only. Last year, when he put 
several hundred sheep and goats into the same enclosure, 
the birds were nearly starved, but they regained their 
condition as soon as the sheep were removed. They 
have no shelter of any kind, and have not suffered at 
all from rain or cold. He began with seven— four 
males, and three females, all chicks, their sex undis- 
tinguishable from the plumage. He has had them 16 
months, and has not lost one. He plucks them twice 
