6 
THE LIVING ANIMALS OL THE WORLD 
The egg of the ostrich weighs about 3 lbs., and is of delicious flavour. The empty shell, 
it has been found by experiment, is large enough to hold the contents of eighteen eggs of 
the common domesticated fowl. It takes about forty minutes to boil an ostrich egg hare. About 
fifteen eggs represent the clutch. The nest is a mere depression in the sand. The hen sits 
by day, and her mate by night; but the eggs are never left, as is sometimes stated, to the 
heat of the sun, so as to lessen the duties of the parent. Such a course would infallibly destroy 
the eggs, for the sun’s rays, especially at noon, are very powerful. 
The male and female ostrich differ much in coloration. In the former the trunk is clothed 
in a vestment of richest black, whilst the quills of the wings and tail-feathers are of pure white: 
they form the much-prized ostrich plumes. The female is much less splendid, being clothed in 
sober grey. But these colours are not merely ornamental ; they render the male by night and 
the female by day invisible, owing to the perfect harmony they make with their surroundings, 
thus affording an interesting illustration of protective coloration. 
“ All ostriches,” says Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, “ adults as well as chicks, have a strange 
habit known as ‘ waltzing.’ When chicks are let out from a kraal in the early morning, the}^ 
will often start away at a great pace. After running for a few hundred yards they will all stop, 
and, with wings raised, spin round 
rapidly for some time, often till quite 
giddy, when a broken leg occasionally 
occurs. Adult birds, when running 
in large camps, will often, if the 
veldt is good, do the same, especially 
if startled in the fresh of the early 
morning. A troop of birds waltzing, 
in full plumage, is a remarkably 
pretty sight. Vicious cocks ‘ roll ’ 
when challenging to fight, also when 
wooing the hen. The cock will 
suddenly bump down on to his ‘ knees’ 
. . . open his wings, making a straight 
line across his breast, and then swing 
them alternately backwards and 
forwards ... as if on a pivot, each 
wing, as it comes forward, being 
raised, while that going backward is 
depressed. The neck is lowered until the head is on a level with the back, and the head and 
neck swing from side to side with the wings, the back of the head striking with a loud 
click against the ribs, first on the one side and then on the other. The click is produced 
by the skin of the neck, which then bulges loosely just under the beak and for some distance 
downwards. While ‘ rolling,’ every feather over the whole body is on end, and the plumes are 
open, like a large white fan. At such a time the bird sees very imperfectly, if at all ; in fact, 
he seems so preoccupied that, if pursued, one may often approach unnoticed. I have walked up 
to a ‘ rolling’ cock and seized him by the neck, much to his surprise. Just before rolling, a 
cock, especially if courting the hen, will often run slowly and daintily on the points of his 
toes, with neck slightly inflated, upright and rigid, the tail half drooped, and all his body- 
feathers fluffed up; the wings raised and expanded, the inside edges touching the sides of the 
neck for nearly the whole of its length, and the plumes showing separately, like an open fan 
... on each side of his head. In no other attitude is the splendid beauty of his plumage 
displayed to such advantage.” 
The males are very fierce while guarding their eggs or fighting for mates, and kick with 
extraordinary violence with their powerful legs. As an example of their fierceness when aroused, 
Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, who knows much of these birds, relates a story, told him by a 
Photo by IV, Reidl [fVijhaw^ N.B. 
OSTRICHES TEN DAYS OLD 
The doiMn-feather% of young ostriches are quite different from those of other birds^ 
the tips of each being produced into a horny ribbon 
