Impart a lively interest to a ride in the Pampas. They are sometimes
seen in coveys of twenty or thirty, gliding elegantly along the
undulations of the plain, at half pistol-shot from each other, like
skirmishers. The young are easily domesticated, and soon become attached
to those who caress them; but they are troublesome inmates; for,
stalking about the house, they will, when full grown, swallow coin,
shirt-pins, and every small article of metal within reach. Their usual
food, in a wild state, is seeds, herbage, and insects; the flesh is a
reddish brown, and if young, not of bad flavour. A great many eggs are
laid in the same nest. Some accounts exonerate the ostrich from being
the most stupid bird in the creation. This has been proved by the
experiment of taking an egg away, or by putting one in addition. In
either case she destroys the whole by smashing them with her feet.
Although she does not attend to secrecy, in selecting a situation for
her nest, she will forsake it if the eggs have been handled. It is also
said that she rolls a few eggs thirty yards distant from the nest, and
cracks the shells, which, by the time her young come forth, being filled
with maggots, and covered with insects, form the first repast of her
infant brood. The male bird is said to take upon himself the rearing of
the young. If two cock-birds meet, each with a family, they fight for
the supremacy over both; for which reason an ostrich has sometimes under
his tutelage broods of different ages.--_Mem. Gen. Miller._
Dr. Kitchiner recommends a gentleman who has a mind to carry the
arrangement of his clothes to a nicety, to have the shelves of his
wardrobe numbered 30, 40, 50, and 60, and according to the degree of
cold pointed to by his thermometer, to wear a corresponding defence
against it.
Dr. Harwood fed two pointers; one he suffered to sleep after dinner,
another he forced to take exercise. In the stomach of the one who had
been quiet and asleep, all the food was digested; in the stomach of the
other, that process was hardly begun.