462 
OSTRICH. 
are furnished at the end with a kind of spur, about 
an inch long, of a horny substance. Each wing 
has two of these, the largest of which is at the end, 
and the other a foot lower. The thighs are large 
and muscular, and the legs and feet covered before 
with scales. 
We learn from Mr. Barrow, that when the 
ostriches are seen scouring the plains, and waving 
their black and white plumes in the wind, it is a 
signal to the Hottentots that their nests are not far 
distant, especially if they wheel round the place 
from whence they started up ; but when they have 
no nest, they make off immediately on being dis- 
turbed, with their wing-feathers close to the body. 
“ The ostrich,” says this gentleman, c< is one of the 
very few polygamous birds that are found in a state 
of nature. The male, distinguished by its glossy 
black feathers from the dusky gray female, is gene- 
rally seen in company with two or three, and fre- 
quently as many as five of the latter. Those females 
lay their eggs in one nest, to the number of ten or 
twelve each, which they hatch all together, the 
male taking his turn of sitting on them among the 
rest. Between sixty and seventy eggs are said to 
have been found in one nest ; and if incubation has 
begun, a few are most commonly lying round the 
sides of the hole, having been thrown out by the 
birds on finding the nest to contain more than they 
could conveniently cover. The time of incubation 
is six weeks. From its not being known that the 
