If You Drop Your Knife Or Any Other Article, He
Will Stop To Examine It, Being Most Inquisitive, And, If Possible, He
Will Swallow It.
The flesh of the ostrich is dry and tough, and its
feathers are not to be compared in beauty with those of the African
specimen.
Generally a very harmless bird, he is truly formidable
during breeding time. If one of the eggs is so much as touched he
will break the whole number to shivers. Woe to the man whom he
savagely attacks at such times; one kick of his great foot, with its
sharp claws, is sufficient to open the body of man or horse. The
Gaucho uses the skin from the neck of this bird as a tobacco pouch,
and the eggs are considered a great delicacy. One is equal to about
sixteen hen's eggs.
As all creation has its enemy, the ostrich finds his in the iguana,
or lizard - an unsightly, scaly, long-tailed species of land
crocodile. This animal, when full-grown, attains the length of five
feet, and is of a dark green color. He, when he can procure them,
feeds on the ostrich eggs, which I believe must be a very
strengthening diet. The lizard, after fattening himself upon them
during the six hotter months of the year, is enabled to retire to the
recesses of his cave, where he tranquilly sleeps through the
remaining six. The shell of the ostrich's egg is about the thickness
of an antique china cup, but the iguana finds no difficulty in
breaking it open with a slash of his tail This wily animal is more
astute than the bird, which lays its eggs in the open spaces, for the
lizard, with her claws, digs a hole in the ground, in which hers are
dropped to the number of dozens.
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