Chap. VII. 
THE OSTKICH. 
155 
asserted that ostriches are polygamous, though they often appear 
to be so. When caught they are easily tamed, but are of no use 
in their domesticated state. 
The egg is possessed of very great vital power. One kept in a 
room during more than three months, in a temperature about 
60 °, when broken was found to have a partially developed live 
chick in it. The Bushmen carefully avoid touching the eggs, or 
leaving marks of human feet near them, when they find a nest. 
They go up the wind to the spot, and with a long stick remove 
some of them occasionally, and, by preventing any suspicion, 
keep the hen laying on for months, as we do with fowls. The 
eggs have a strong disagreeable flavour, which only the keen 
appetite of the Desert can reconcile one to. The Hottentots use 
their trousers to carry home the twenty or twenty-five eggs 
usually found in a nest; and it has happened that an English¬ 
man, intending to imitate this knowing dodge, comes to the 
waggons with blistered legs, and, after great toil, finds all the 
eggs uneatable, from having been some time sat upon. Our 
countrymen invariably do best when they contmue to think, 
speak, and act in their own proper character. 
The food of the ostrich consists of pods and seeds of different 
lands of leguminous plants, with leaves of various plants; and, as 
these are often hard and dry, he picks up a great quantity of 
pebbles, many of which are as large as marbles. He picks lip 
also some small bulbs, and occasionally a wild melon to afford 
moisture, for one was found with a melon which had choked him 
by sticldng in his throat. It requires the utmost address of the 
Bushmen, crawling for miles on their stomachs, to stalk them 
successfully; yet the quantity of feathers collected annually 
shows that the numbers slain must be considerable, as each bird 
has only a few in the wings and tail. The male bird is of a jet 
black glossy colour, with the single exception of the white 
feathers, wliich are objects of trade. Hothing can be finer than 
the adaptation of these flossy feathers for the climate of the 
Kalahari, where these bfrds abound; for they afford a perfect 
shade to the body, with free ventilation beneath them. The hen 
ostrich is of a dark brownish-grey colour, and so are the half- 
grow cocks. 
