When Your Driver Is Young And Amorously Inclined You Will Notice That
He Never Starts For The Regions Beyond Without First Providing
Himself With An Owl's Skin.
This tied on his breast, he tells you,
will ensure him favor in the eyes of the females he may meet on the
road, and on arrival at his destination.
I once witnessed what at first sight appeared to be a heavy fall of
snow coming up with the wind from the south. Strange to relate, this
phenomenon turned out to be millions of white butterflies of large
size. Some of these, when measured, I found to be four and five
inches across the wings. Darwin relates his having, in 1832, seen the
same sight, when his men exclaimed that it was "snowing butterflies."
The inhabitants of these trackless wilds are very, very few, but in
all directions I saw numbers of ostriches, which run at the least
sign of man, their enemy. The fastest horse could not outstrip this
bird as with wings outstretched he speeds before the hunter. As Job,
perhaps the oldest historian of the world, truly says: "What time she
lifteth herself up on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider."
The male bird joins his spouse in hatching the eggs, sitting on them
perhaps longer turns than the female, but the weather is so hot that
little brooding is required. I have had them on the shelf of my
cupboard for a week, when the little ones have forced their way out
Forty days is the time of incubation, so, naturally, those must have
been already sat on for thirty-three days.
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