It Can Not Be 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 Deg.,
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 flavor,
which only the keen appetite of the Desert can reconcile one to.
The Hottentots use their trowsers to carry home the twenty or twenty-five eggs
usually found in a nest; and it has happened that an Englishman,
intending to imitate this knowing dodge, comes to the wagons
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 continue to think, speak, and act in their own proper character.
The food of the ostrich consists of pods and seeds of different kinds
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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 248 of 1070
Words from 71304 to 71564
of 306638
