OSTRICHES.
An unwilling ride--First sight of an ostrich farm--Ridiculous mistakes
about ostriches--Decreased value of birds and feathers--Chicks--Plumage
of ostriches--A frightened ostrich--The plucking-box--Sorting
feathers--Voice of the ostrich--Savage birds--"Not afraid of a
dicky-bird!"--Quelling an ostrich--Birds killed by men in
self-defence--Nests--An undutiful hen--Darby and Joan--A disconsolate
widower--A hen-pecked husband--Too much zeal--Jackie--Cooling the
eggs--The white-necked crow--Poisoning jackals--Ostrich eggs in the
kitchen--A quaint old writer on ostriches--A suppliant bird--Nest
destroyed by enraged ostrich--An old bachelor.
A Few years before my marriage, having, as usual, fled the terrors of
the English winter, I was with a friend in Egypt. And one morning this
friend and I stood in the court of the Hôtel du Nil in Cairo; preparing
to mount donkeys and start on a photographing expedition to Heliopolis
(the "On" of the Scriptures), and Matariyeh, one of the supposed
resting-places of the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt. The
fussy, bustling little German manager of the hotel, with his usual
paternal care for his guests, was commending us, in a long and voluble
Arabic speech, to the special care and attention of the donkey-boys;
with numerous minute instructions, all unintelligible to us, as to our
route, etc. Then, just as we had mounted, he turned to us and said, "I
have told them to show you something more on the way back, something
_very interesting_." "What is it?" we were about to ask; but before we
could get the words out, the ubiquitous little man had bustled off to
other business; and we ourselves were flying at a headlong pace down
the narrow Arab street, closely pursued by our impetuous donkey-boys;
who, anxious to make an imposing start, urged on our animals, not only
with savage yells and blows, but also with frequent and cruel digs from
the sharp points of our camera's tripod stand.
Even after we had left the town far behind us, and our tyrants, for
lack of an admiring crowd before whom to exhibit us, allowed us to
settle down into a peaceful trot, it was quite useless to look to them
for any information concerning this promised interesting sight; for our
few words of Algerian Arabic did not avail in Egypt; and as for the
European vocabulary of the donkey-boys, it was, as usual, strictly
limited to an accurate knowledge of all the bad words in English,
French and German. N.B.--A donkey-boy is never promoted to the dignity
of being called a donkey-_man_, but, however old and grey he may have
grown in the service, always retains the juvenile appellation.
On arriving at Heliopolis, our ungratified curiosity was soon forgotten
in the interest of seeing that venerable obelisk which once, in all
probability, looked down on the wedding procession of Joseph and the
daughter of "Potipherah, priest of On;" and the sun gave us some good
pictures of that sole remaining relic of the city where he himself was
formerly worshipped. We spent a long morning at Heliopolis and
Matariyeh; and it was not until we had proceeded some distance along
the dusty road leading back to Cairo, that we suddenly recollected
there was yet one more sight on our programme. The sun was blazing down
fiercely on us; we were very tired; longing visions of the Hôtel du Nil
luncheon, the hour for which had already come, filled our minds; and
most devoutly did we hope the donkey-boys might forget they had
something more to show us, and--possibly being hungry themselves--take
us straight home. But no! suddenly our reluctant donkeys were abruptly
turned from the homeward course on which they were trotting so merrily;
and by main force pushed into a particularly uninviting path branching
off at right angles from the road. We made one desperate effort to turn
them back; but our tormentors flew to their heads, and, dragging,
pushing, almost lifting them along, applied the tripod's spikes with
fresh energy. In vain did we expostulate; explaining piteously, with
all the powers of pantomime at our command, that we were tired and
hungry, and wanted to go back to the hotel; that we would come and see
this interesting sight, whatever it was, tomorrow, bookra--that
favourite word of the procrastinating Orientals, which, like the
_mañana_ of the Spaniards, soon becomes hatefully familiar from
constant hearing, and which is second only to the terrible _baksheesh_!
The relentless donkey-boys, beyond chuckling over our disappointment,
took no notice whatever of our appeals; and on we had to go at a rapid
gallop, stirring up dense clouds of the blinding, choking,
evil-smelling Egyptian dust; and realizing, as did Mark Twain when
ascending the Pyramid, how powerless one is in the hands of Arabs, who
surely, with such iron wills, ought to be good mesmerists. Resigning
ourselves at last to our fate with the patience of despair, we tried,
though with but languid interest, to find out what we were going to
see; but for a long time could get nothing intelligible from the
donkey-boys, who only enjoyed our mystification. At last one of them,
struck by a bright idea, pointed to J----'s hat, in which was an
ostrich-feather; and we guessed at once that the Khedive's ostrich
farm, which we knew was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Cairo, was
the object of our unwilling ride. Here was another disappointment! Not
even a ruined mosque, picturesque Arab house, or other possible subject
for the camera, to reward us for our fatigue and discomfort; nothing
but dry, barren-looking land, ugly modern European buildings, and
ungainly birds! We walked hurriedly, and with great indifference, past
the rows of camps, each with its pair of breeding-birds; felt little
regret on being denied entrance to the incubator-rooms, which,
happening to contain young chicks, were closed to the public; and
rejoiced exceedingly when, our task done, and our tyrants appeased by
our complete subjugation, we were at last on our way back to Cairo.
Thus, in weariness and indifference, I viewed an ostrich farm for the
first time. Could I but have had one vision of the happy home, situated
among just such surroundings, which awaited me in the future, with what
different eyes would I have looked on all the minutest details of a
daily life destined one day to be mine! How eagerly would I have bribed
the custodian of the incubators for just one peep at the little
rough-coated baby ostriches, if I had known what numbers of these
comical wee things were in future to be my carefully-tended nurslings!
And when T----, anxious to compare notes, sometimes asks me how this or
that was managed on the Khedive's farm, and I am unable to give
accurate information, I still regret that lost opportunity; and blush
at the remembrance of the base longing for luncheon, to which, I fear,
the want of observation was chiefly due.
It is rather surprising to find how little is known in England about
ostrich-farming. Any information on the subject seems quite new to the
hearers; and the strangest questions are sometimes asked--as, for
instance, whether ostriches fly; whether they bite; whether we ever
ride or drive them, etc. It is always taken for granted that a vicious
bird administers his kick backwards, like a horse; and there seems
still to be a very general belief in those old popular errors of which
the natural history of these creatures possesses more than the average
share. If you look at the picture of an ostrich, you will be sure to
find, in nine cases out of ten, that the drawing is ludicrously
incorrect; the bird being almost invariably represented with three toes
instead of two; and with a tail consisting of a large and magnificent
bunch of _wing_-feathers, the finest and longest of "prime whites."
Farmers would only be too thankful if their birds _had_ such tails,
instead of the short, stiff, scrubby tuft of inferior feathers which
in reality forms the caudal appendage.
Each of my friends and relatives, when first told, at the time of
our engagement, that T---- was "an ostrich-farmer," received the
intelligence with an amused smile; and the clergyman at whose church
we were married seemed quite taken aback on obtaining so novel and
unexpected an answer to his question, during the vestry formalities,
as to T----'s vocation in life. He hesitated, pen in hand, for some
time; made T---- repeat and explain the puzzling word; and at last
only with evident reluctance inscribed it in the church books.
In the early days of ostrich-farming splendid fortunes were made. Then,
feathers were worth £100 per lb., the plumes of one bird at a single
plucking realizing on an average £25. For a good pair of breeding-birds
£400, or even £500, was no uncommon price; and little chicks, only just
out of the egg, were worth £10 each. Indeed, the unhatched eggs have
sometimes been valued at the same amount. But, since the supply has
become so much greater than the demand, things are sadly changed for
the farmers; our best pair of ostriches would not now sell for more
than £12, and experience has taught us to look for no higher sum than
thirty shillings for the feathers of the handsomest bird at one
plucking. At the same time, if a lady wishes to buy a good feather in
London or Paris, she has to pay nearly the same price as in former
times.[4]
[4] Although, since these pages were written, ostriches have
somewhat increased in value it cannot, of course, be expected
that they will ever again command the prices of former days.
There are not many young animals prettier than a little ostrich-chick
during the first few weeks of life. It has such a sweet, innocent
baby-face, such large eyes, and such a plump, round little body. All
its movements are comical, and there is an air of conceit and
independence about the tiny creature which is most amusing. Instead of
feathers, it has a little rough coat which seems all made up of narrow
strips of material, of as many different shades of brown and grey as
there are in a tailor's pattern-book, mixed with shreds of black; while
the head and neck are apparently covered with the softest plush,
striped and coloured just like a tiger's skin on a small scale. On the
whole, the little fellow, on his first appearance in the world, is not
unlike a hedgehog on two legs, with a long neck.
One would like these delightful little creatures to remain babies much
longer than they do; but they grow quickly, and with their growth they
soon lose all their prettiness and roundness; their bodies become
angular and ill-proportioned, a crop of coarse, wiry feathers sprouts
from the parti-coloured strips which formed their baby-clothes, and
they enter on an ugly "hobbledehoy" stage, in which they remain for two
or three years.
[Illustration: OSTRICH-CHICKS.]
A young ostrich's rough, bristly, untidy-looking "chicken-feathers" are
plucked for the first time when he is nine months old; they are stiff
and narrow, with very pointed tips, and their ugly appearance gives no
promise of future beauty. They do not look as if they could be used for
anything but making feather brooms. In the second year they are rather
more like what ostrich-feathers ought to be, though still very narrow
and pointed; and not until their wearer is plucked for the third time
have they attained their full width and softness.
During the first two years the sexes cannot be distinguished, the
plumage of all being of a dingy drab mixed with black; the latter hue
then begins to predominate more and more in the male bird with each
successive moulting, until at length no drab feathers are left. At five
years the bird has attained maturity; the plumage of the male is then
of a beautiful glossy black, and that of the female of a soft grey,
both having white wings and tails. In each wing there are twenty-four
long white feathers, which, when the wing is spread out, hang
gracefully round the bird like a lovely deep fringe--just as I have
sometimes in Brazilian forests, seen fringes of large and delicate
fern-fronds hanging, high overhead, from the branches of some giant
tree.
The ostrich's body is literally "a bag of bones;" and the
enormously-developed thighs, which are the only fleshy part of the
bird, are quite bare, their coarse skin being of a peculiarly ugly
blue-grey colour. The little flat head, much too small for the huge
body, is also bald, with the exception of a few stiff bristles and
scanty tufts of down; such as also redeem the neck from absolute
bareness. During the breeding season the bill of the male bird, and the
large scales on the fore part of his legs, assume a beautiful deep
rose-colour, looking just as if they were made of the finest pink
coral; in some cases the skin of the head and neck also becomes red at
that time.
The North African or Barbary ostriches, several of which are to be seen
at the Jardin d'Essai, in Algiers, have bright red thighs, head, and
neck, and are altogether far handsomer than the Cape birds; their
feathers also, being larger, softer, and possessing longer filaments,
command much higher prices than those of their southern brethren.
Altogether, ostriches are queer-looking creatures; they are so awkward,
so out of proportion, and everything about them, with the exception of
their plumage and their big, soft, dark eyes, is so quaintly ugly as to
suggest the idea that they have only by some mistake survived the
Deluge, and that they would be more in their right place embedded in
the fossiliferous strata of the earth than running about on its
surface. And how they _do_ run! Only startle an ostrich; and very
little is sufficient to do this, his nerves being of the feeblest, and
"his heart in his mouth" at even the smallest or most imaginary danger.
What a jump he gives, and what a swerve to one side! Surely it must
have dislocated some of his joints. But no; off he goes, flinging out
his clumsy legs, and twisting himself about as he runs, till you almost
expect to see him come to pieces, or, at any rate, fling off a leg, as
a lobster casts a claw, or a frightened lizard parts from its tail. An
ostrich's joints seem to be all loose, like those of a lay-figure when
not properly tightened up. He rapidly disappears from view; and the
last you see of him he is, as Mark Twain has it, "still
running"--apparently with no intention of stopping till he has reached
the very centre of Africa. But his mad scamper will most probably end a
few miles off, with a tumble into a wire fence, and a broken leg.
Sometimes, however, ostriches, when they take fright, run so long and
get so far away that their owner never recovers them. One we heard of,
to whose tail a mischievous boy had tied a newspaper, went off at
railway speed, and no tidings of it were ever received. Once, when
T---- was collecting his birds for plucking, one of them was
unaccountably seized with a sudden panic, and bolted; and though T----
mounted at once and rode after it, he neither saw nor heard of it
again.
On a large farm, when plucking is contemplated, it is anything but an
easy matter to collect the birds--the gathering together of ours was
generally a work of three days. Men have to be sent out in all
directions to drive the birds up, by twos and threes, from the far-off
spots to which they have wandered; little troops are gradually brought
together, and collected, first in a large enclosure, then in a small
one, the plucking-kraal, in which they are crowded together so closely,
that the most savage bird has no room to make himself disagreeable.
Besides the gate through which the ostriches are driven into the kraal,
there is an outlet at the opposite end, through the "plucking-box."
This latter is a most useful invention, saving much time and trouble.
It is a very solid wooden box, in which, though there is just room for
an ostrich to stand, he cannot possibly turn round; nor can he kick,
the sides of the box being too high. At each end there is a stout door;
one opening inside, the other outside the kraal. Each bird in
succession is dragged up to the first door, and, after more or less of
a scuffle, is pushed in and the door slammed behind him. Then the two
operators, standing one on each side of the box, have him completely in
their power; and with a few rapid snips of their shears his splendid
wings are soon denuded of their long white plumes. These, to prevent
their tips from being spoilt, are always cut before the quills are
ripe. The stumps of the latter are allowed to remain some two or three
months longer, until they are so ripe that they can be pulled
out--generally by the teeth of the Kaffirs--without hurting the bird.
It is necessary to pull them; the feathers, which by their weight would
have caused the stumps to fall out naturally at the right time, being
gone. Some farmers, anxious to hurry on the next crop of feathers, are
cruel enough to draw the stumps before they are ripe; but nature, as
usual, resents the interference with her laws, and the feathers of
birds which have been thus treated soon deteriorate. It is best to
pluck only once a year. The tails, and the glossy black feathers on the
bodies of the birds, having small quills, are not cut, but pulled out;
this, everyone says, does not hurt the birds, but there is an
unpleasant tearing sound about the operation, and I think it must make
their eyes water.
After a plucking would come several very busy days of sorting and tying
up the feathers in readiness for the market; for T----, whenever he
could spare the time, preferred doing this work himself to employing
the professional sorters in Port Elizabeth, who charge exorbitantly.
During these few days everything had to give way to feathers, large
piled-up masses of which crowded the rooms, till we seemed to be over
head and ears in feathers. Feathers covered the floor and invaded every
article of furniture, especially monopolizing the dining-table; and
when, at all sorts of irregular hours, we grudgingly allowed ourselves
time for rough, impromptu meals of cold or tinned meat, we picnicked
among feathers. It was useless to attempt keeping the rooms either tidy
or clean while sorting was going on; and we resigned ourselves to
living for those two or three days in a state at which owners of neat
English homes would shudder--indeed, those only who have seen the
process of sorting can form any idea of the untidiness, the dust, the
fluffs, and the sneezing. But they were pleasant days; and many an
interesting book will always be associated in our minds with the
sorting of ostrich-feathers; for, while T---- arranged prime whites,
blacks, tails, feminas, chicken-feathers, etc., according to length,
colour, and quality, I enlivened the monotony of his work by reading
aloud.
Sometimes the white feathers would be dirty--for there is nothing an
ostrich likes better than sitting down to cool himself in the muddiest
dam he can find--then it was necessary to wash them, dip them into
strong raw starch, and shake them in the hot sun, beating two bundles
of them together till quite dry. The starch makes them look very pretty
and fluffy; and young ladies in England who economically wash their own
feathers would find it a great improvement. Ostrich-feathers are quite
tabooed by ladies in South Africa; they are too common, every Kaffir or
Hottentot wearing one in his dirty, battered hat.
If an ostrich-feather is held upright, its beautiful form--graceful as
the frond-like branch of the cocoa-nut palm, which it somewhat
resembles--is at once seen to be perfectly even and equal on both
sides, its stem dividing it exactly in the centre; whereas the stems of
other feathers are all more or less on one side. The ancient Egyptians,
observant of this--as of everything in nature--chose the
ostrich-feather as the sacred emblem of truth and justice, setting it
upon the head of Thmei, goddess of truth.
After a good rain, ostriches soon begin to make nests; the males become
very savage, and their note of defiance--_brooming_, as it is called by
the Dutch--is heard in all directions. The bird inflates his neck in a
cobra-like fashion, and gives utterance to three deep roars; the two
first short and _staccato_, the third very prolonged. Lion-hunters all
agree in asserting that the roar of the king of beasts and that of the
most foolish of birds are identical in sound; with this difference
only, that the latter, when near, resembles the former very far away.
T----, when hunting in the interior, has often been deceived by the
sound--expecting a lion, and finding only an ostrich.
When the birds are savage--_quei_, as the Dutch call it--they become
very aggressive, and it is impossible to walk about the camps unless
armed with a weapon of defence called a "tackey." This is simply a long
and stout branch of mimosa, with the thorns all left on at the end. It
seems but a feeble protection against a foe who, with one stroke of his
immensely powerful leg, can easily kill a man; the kick, no less
violent than that of a horse, being rendered infinitely more dangerous
by the formidable claw with which the foot is armed. Those, however,
who are well practised in the use of the tackey are able, with the
coolness of Spanish bull-fighters, to stand and await the charge of the
terrible assailant. They allow him to come to what, to the
inexperienced eye, seem unpleasantly close quarters; then, just as he
prepares to strike, the tackey is boldly thrust into his face. The
thorns oblige him to close his eyes, and he can only run blindly
forward; the bearer of the tackey springing on one side, and gaining
time to proceed some distance on his way, before the silly bird has
recovered from his bewilderment and makes a fresh charge, when the
weapon is again presented.
Fortunately, you are never assailed by more than one ostrich at a time;
for in the large camps of some two thousand acres each--in which the
birds are not fenced off in pairs, but live almost in the freedom of
wild creatures--each one has his own domain, separated from those of
others by some imaginary boundary-line of his own, visible only to
himself, but as clearly marked out as the beat of a London policeman.
There, in company with one or perhaps two hens, he dwells monarch of
all he surveys; any other ostrich daring to invade his territory is at
once attacked; and the human intruder is closely followed, his tackey
in constant requisition, until the feathered lord of the land has seen
him safely off the premises. Immediately after thus speeding the
parting guest, the most savage bird is quite harmless; he dismisses you
from his thoughts, and walks quietly back, feeding as he goes. And in
the distance you see the head and long neck of his neighbour, whose
kingdom you have now entered, and whose sharp eyes spied you out the
instant your foot crossed his frontier. _He_ now advances towards you
with jerky, spasmodic movements, as if he were bowing you a welcome;
this, however, is far from his thoughts, and after sitting down once or
twice to give you his challenge--whereby he hopes you will be
intimidated--he trots up defiantly, and the tackey's services are again
required. Thus, during a morning's walk through the camps, you may be
escorted in succession by four or five vicious birds, all determined to
have your life if possible, yet held completely in check by a few
mimosa thorns.
When an ostrich challenges he sits down; and, flapping each broad wing
alternately, inflates his neck, and throws his head back, rolling it
from side to side, and with each roll striking the back of his head
against his bony body with so sharp and resounding a blow that a severe
headache seems likely to be the result.
A person on horseback is even more obnoxious to the ostriches than a
pedestrian; and a ride through the camps enables one to realize how
true to life is the description, in the Book of Job, of a vicious bird:
"What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and
his rider." The creature, when preparing for an attack, draws itself
up, stands on tiptoe, stretches its neck to the full extent, and really
seems to gain several feet in height. And, indeed, it does its best to
knock you off your horse. T---- once saw a man riding as desperately as
Tam O'Shanter, with an ostrich in close pursuit. It kept up with him,
helping his horse along with an occasional well-placed kick; while the
unhappy rider, hoping to intimidate his assailant, was again and again
firing off his revolver into the air, but without effect.
As the new arrival in a country subject to earthquakes begins by
thinking very lightly of these disturbances, but finds his appreciation
of their importance increase with every successive shock; so the new
chum in South Africa, inclined at first to look with contempt on the
precautions taken against savage ostriches, learns in time to have a
proper respect for the foolish, innocent-looking creatures, whose soft,
dark-brown eyes look at him so mildly (when he is on the right side of
the fence) that he finds it impossible to believe the stories told him
of their wickedness, and nothing but a closer acquaintance can
undeceive him. On one of the farms a sturdy new-comer, six feet in
height, starting for an early morning walk, was cautioned against going
into a certain camp where the ostriches were dangerous. He laughed at
his friends' advice, told them he was "not afraid of a dicky-bird!"
and--disdaining the proffered tackey--started off straightway in the
forbidden direction. He did not return home to dinner; a search was
made for him; and eventually he was found, perched up on a high
ironstone boulder; just out of reach of a large ostrich, which was
doing sentry, walking up and down, and keeping a vicious eye on him.
There he had sat for hours, nearly roasted alive (ironstone boulders in
the Karroo can get so hot in the sun that it blisters your hand to
touch them); and there he would have had to sit till sundown, had not
the timely appearance of his friends relieved him of the too-pressing
attentions of the "dicky-bird."
Another gentleman had a theory that any creature, however savage, could
be subdued--"quelled," as he said--by the human eye. One day he tried
to quell one of his own ostriches; with the result that he was
presently found by T---- in a very pitiable predicament, lying flat on
the ground; while the subject of his experiment jumped up and down on
him, occasionally varying the treatment by sitting on him.
T---- once bought an ostrich which had killed two men; and which,
although an unusually fine bird, was, on account of its evil
reputation, sold to him for a very low price. Ostriches appear to have
a strong aversion to all the negro race. They attack Kaffirs and
Hottentots much more readily than they do their white masters; and
although--as has just been seen--they are very far from showing that
amount of respect for the latter which is desirable, they seem--except
during the breeding season--to stand in some sort of awe of a white man
as compared with the "niggers," for whom they have the deepest
contempt.
They are uncertain, too, and take sudden and unaccountable dislikes.
One poor Kaffir woman, coming up to work at the house, was attacked,
inside the gate, by one of the tame old ostriches, which--looking out
for scraps thrown from the kitchen, stealing the fowls' food, or now
and then picking up and swallowing a delicious piece of soap left for
an unguarded moment on the washing-machine--prowled about round the
house, and of which no one had ever dreamed of being afraid. Her
solitary and scanty skirt, torn from the top to the bottom, showed how
narrow had been her escape; and she looked livid under her dark skin,
as she came in to ask me for needle and thread to repair the rent.
It has several times happened that one of our herds, in danger of his
life, has been obliged, in self-defence, to kill a vicious ostrich;
and, the finest and most promising birds--naturally the most
savage--being invariably the victims, the loss is always a serious one.
It is indeed no small trial, when, perhaps just as you are comfortably
seated at the breakfast table, the black face of "April," "August," or
"September"--fraught with bad news, and looking very frightened and
ashamed--is suddenly thrust in at the door; and, with much rolling of
white eyeballs, a tragic tale is told, in the most dismal of voices,
and with many harrowing details, of how "Red Wing" or "White Neck" was
_quei_, and attacked the narrator up in the big camp; with the sad
consequence that you are now _minus_ one of the best birds on the farm.
But the poor fellow cannot be blamed or fined for defending his life;
orders are given to pluck and bring down the unfortunate bird's
feathers--the last he will ever yield--and somehow a dead bird's plumes
_always_ seem the most beautiful--
"And then to breakfast, with
What appetite you have."
Toto, although in general no coward, could never, after a severe kick
he received on first coming to the farm, be brought to face a savage
bird. Collies can, however, be made very useful in collecting and
driving ostriches; and Mr. Evans, of Rietfontein, one of our
neighbours, had several which were perfectly trained; working as well
with the birds as their relatives in Scotland and Wales do with sheep.
A few of our birds were fenced off in breeding-camps; each pair having
a run of about one hundred acres. One of these camps was directly
opposite the house; and from the windows we could observe the
regularity with which the two birds, sitting alternately on the eggs,
came on and off at their fixed times. The cock always takes his place
upon the nest at sundown, and sits through the night--his dark plumage
making him much less conspicuous than the light-coloured hen; with his
superior strength and courage, too, he is a better defender of the nest
against midnight marauders. At nine in the morning, with unfailing
punctuality, the hen comes to relieve him, and take up her position for
the day. At the end of the six weeks of sitting, both birds, faithfully
as the task has been shared between them, are in a very enfeebled
state, and miserably poor and thin.
One undutiful hen--having apparently imbibed advanced otions--absolutely
refused to sit at all; and the poor husband, determined not to be
disappointed of his little family, did all the work himself; sitting
bravely and patiently day and night, though nearly dead with exhaustion,
till the chicks were hatched out. The next time this pair of birds had a
nest, the cock's mind was firmly made up that he would stand no more
nonsense. He fought the hen; giving her so severe a thrashing that she
was all but killed--and this Petruchio-like treatment had the desired
effect, for the wife never again rebelled, but sat submissively.
Very different from this couple were the Darby and Joan in the camp
opposite our windows. One unlucky morning the hen, frightened by a
Kaffir's dog, ran into the wire fence, and was so terribly injured that
she had to be killed. For two years poor Darby was a disconsulate
widower, and all attempts to find him a satisfactory second wife were
unavailing; several hens, which, soon after his loss, were in
succession placed in his camp, being only rescued in time, and at the
tackey's point, from being kicked to death. The bare idea of there
being anything pathetic about an ostrich seems absurd--and indeed this
is the only instance I have known of anything of the kind--but it was
truly pitiful to watch this poor bird, as, day after day, and nearly
all day long, he wandered up and down, up and down, the length of his
camp, in the hard, beaten track worn by his restless feet along the
side of the fence.
When his time of mourning at length came to an end, and poor Joan's
long-vacant place was filled, we at first rejoiced. But we soon
doubted whether, after all, he had not been happier as a widower. For
the new wife, a magnificent hen, considerably above the average size,
had him in complete subjection; his spirit seemed quite broken,
probably with long fretting, and he made no attempt to hold his own,
but was for the rest of his days the most hen-pecked--or ought I to
say hen-_kicked_?-- of husbands. Some amount of stratagem was even
necessary on my part, to ensure that he had enough to eat (this pair
of birds, being near the house, were under my special care, and
during droughts were daily fed by me); for every time he came near
the food, the greedy hen would persistently drive him away, standing
on tiptoe and hissing viciously at him--and I soon saw that it was
useless to attempt feeding them together. But the poor, ill-used old
bird and I were good friends, and quite understood one another; and
at all sorts of odd times--watching for those golden opportunities
when his tyrant was safely out of sight at the further end of the
camp--he would come down to the fence and look out for me, and I
would bring him a good feed of mealies.
As a father, Darby was no less devoted than he had formerly been as a
husband; and to please him we allowed his chicks to remain with him,
and set the whole family free to roam where they liked about the
_veldt_; breaking through the usual rule, which is to take the little
birds from the parents when two or three days old, and herd them near
the house. For they never become as tame when brought up by the old
ones as when accustomed from the first to human society. These poor
little birds, I am sorry to say, did not flourish under parental
guardianship; indeed, it was not long before they were all dead. For
their well-meaning, but over-zealous father, apparently thinking no
_veldt_ good enough for them, kept them continually on the move; and,
in his perpetual search for "fresh woods and pastures new," took them
such long distances that he literally walked them as well as himself to
death. Not many days after the last chick's departure, Darby's own poor
body, worn to a skeleton by these restless wanderings, following on six
weeks of incubation, was found on the _veldt_.
When, as sometimes happens, one solitary chick is reared at the house,
it becomes absurdly and often inconveniently tame. A friend of ours, on
returning to his farm at the end of a severe thunderstorm, found that
an ostrich's nest had been washed away. Some of the eggs were rescued
from the water, and--being of course deserted by the parents--were
placed in an incubator, where, contrary to all expectations, one chick
came out. This bird, Jackie, became the tamest and most audacious of
pets; and, like many another spoilt only child, was often a terrible
nuisance. All the little niggers about the place had a lively dread of
him; and he requisitioned their food in the boldest manner. As they sat
on the ground at meals, with plates of boiled pumpkin and rice in their
laps, he would come up, and, stretching his snake-like neck over their
heads, or insinuating it under their arms, would coolly help himself to
the contents of one plate after another. Occasionally he would make for
the unhappy youngsters in so menacing a manner as to frighten them into
dropping their plates altogether; then, while his victims ran away
crying, he would squat on his heels among the _débris_, and regale his
enormous appetite at leisure.
But one day retribution came. Being free of the kitchen--simply because
no one could keep him out--he was not long in observing that the
pumpkin and rice always came out of one particular pot; and, the idea
suddenly occurring to him that he could do no better than go straight
to the fountain-head for his favourite dish, he walked up, full of
joyful anticipation, to the fire where this pot was bubbling. The
cook--who, being mother to several of the ill-used children, did not
love Jackie--offered no friendly interference to save him from his
fate; and, plunging his bill into the pot, he greedily scooped up, and,
with the lightning-like rapidity of ostriches, tossed down his throat,
a large mouthful of boiling rice. Poor fellow! the next moment he was
dancing round the kitchen, writhing with agony, shaking his head nearly
off, and twisting his neck as if bent on tying it in a knot. Finally he
dashed wildly from the house; the cook, avenged at last for all the
dinners he had devoured, called after him as he stumbled out at the
door, "Serve you right, Jackie!"--and away he fled across the _veldt_,
till the last that was seen of him was a little cloud of white dust
vanishing on the horizon. He returned a sadder and a wiser bird; and it
was long before he again ventured inside the kitchen.
When about a year old, Jackie was sold to a farmer who had long coveted
him; and who, no doubt, soon repented of his purchase. He was now
sufficiently strong to give a good hard kick; and, being a more daring
freebooter than ever, and no respecter of persons, he would march up
and attack any one he saw carrying food, or what he thought might be
food; endeavouring, by a well-aimed blow, to strike it out of their
hands; his evil design generally succeeding. At length his master,
tired of hearing constant complaints of his conduct, and impatient of
his perpetual intrusion indoors, tried putting him into a camp. There,
however, he obstinately refused to remain. As soon as he was put in, he
would squat down, laying his head and neck on the ground; then, making
himself as flat as possible, he would "squirm" out, not without some
difficulty, under the lowest wire of the fence. It was impossible to
keep him in; and he was left to his own devices, calmly regarded as a
necessary evil, and allowed to be as great a nuisance as he liked.
But poor Jackie soon ceased from troubling--his end, as may well be
imagined, being brought about by no other cause than his own moral
obliquity. One day he wandered down to the river, where some Kaffir
women were washing clothes; their children, a group of little animated
nude bronzes, playing near them. One little fellow, who was eating, was
of course instantly spied out by the covetous Jackie; who rushed to
kick him, but in so doing tumbled down in the rocky bed of the river,
and broke his own leg. The inevitable result followed, and Jackie, like
all other broken-legged ostriches, had to be killed.
The hen ostrich lays every alternate day; and if, for each egg laid,
one is taken from the nest, she will continue laying until she has
produced from twenty to thirty. One, which belonged to T----, laid
sixty eggs without intermission. If no eggs are taken away, the hen
leaves off laying as soon as she has from fifteen to twenty; the latter
being the greatest number that can be satisfactorily covered by the
birds. The surplus eggs are placed in incubators. It is best not to
give much artificial food to the birds while sitting; as, if overfed,
they become restless, and are liable to desert the nest.
Every morning and evening the nest, or rather the shallow indentation
in the sandy ground which forms this simplest of all "homes without
hands," is left uncovered for a quarter of an hour, to allow the eggs
to cool. The sight of nests thus apparently deserted has probably given
rise to the erroneous idea that the ostrich leaves her eggs to hatch in
the sun. The passage in the book of Job: "Which leaveth her eggs in the
earth, and warmeth them in the dust," is also generally supposed to
point to the same conclusion, though in reality there can be no doubt
that the latter part of the sentence simply applies to the warming of
the eggs by the heat of the bird's body as she sits over them in her
dusty nest. Stupid though she is, she has more sense than to believe in
the possibility of the sun hatching her eggs; she is indeed quite aware
of the fact that, if allowed to blaze down on them with untempered
heat, even during the short time she is off the nest, it would be
injurious to them; and therefore, on a hot morning, she does not leave
them without first placing on the top of each a good pinch of sand.
This she does in order that the germ--which, whatever side of the egg
is uppermost, always rises to the highest point--may be shaded and
protected. Having thus set her nest in order, she walks off, to fortify
herself with a good meal for the duties of the day.
And now comes the white-necked crow's chance; for which, ever since at
earliest dawn he drew out his artful old head from under his wing, he
has been patiently waiting. An ostrich-egg is to him the daintiest of
all delicacies; but, nature not having bestowed on him a bill strong
enough to break its hard shell, he is only able, by means of an
ingenious device, to regale on the interior. He carefully watches till
the parent's back is turned, and she is a good distance from the nest;
then, flying up into the air, he drops a stone from a great height with
a most accurate aim, and breaks an egg. He makes good use of his
quarter of an hour; and he, no less than the hen ostrich, has had an
ample meal by the time the latter returns to the nest. Perhaps
to-morrow she will not wander so far away.
This crow, inveterate egg-stealer though he is, has a most respectable
and clerical appearance; and with his neat suit of black and his little
white tie he looks indeed "unco guid." The Boers--possibly on account of
this pious exterior--have a legend to the effect that these birds are
the "ravens" which fed Elijah. They say that after the birds had carried
the meat, a little of the fat remained on their necks; in commemoration
of which their descendants have this one conspicuous white patch on
their otherwise black plumage. Numbers of tortoise-shells, some of
immense size, are found about the _veldt_; which have been broken in the
same manner as the ostrich-eggs, and their inmates devoured, by these
crows; who thus reverse the process by which, some twenty-three
centuries ago, the eagle, dropping his tortoise on what seemed to him a
convenient stone for his purpose, smashed the bald head of poor
Æschylus.
Among the denizens of the _veldt_ the crows, unfortunately, are not the
only appreciators of ostrich-eggs: and our worst enemies are the
jackals. In lonely, far-off camps they plunder many promising nests;
rolling the eggs away with their paws, sometimes to great distances.
Occasionally, too, little chicks fall victims. We waged deadly war
against the depredators; making liberal use of strychnine pills to
"take us the foxes, the little foxes," which, finding no vines to spoil
in the Karroo, were instead spoilers of ostrich nests. On a large
vine-farm in the Atlas Mountains, where, after leaving the Cape, we
spent some months, we were able to note the accuracy of this passage of
Scripture--in which, I am told, the word rendered "foxes" ought in
reality to have been translated "jackals." These animals did indeed
work terrible havoc among the vines, eating incredible numbers of
grapes; and T---- did much good by his introduction among them of the
South African plan of poisoning, to which many succumbed. The pills,
enclosed in pieces of fat, are dropped about the _veldt_; generally by
a man on horseback, towing behind him a piece of very "high" meat,
which, fastened by a _riem_ (narrow strip of hide) to the horse's tail,
drags along the ground. By-and-by the jackals, attracted by the odour
of meat, come out; and, following along the route taken by the
poisoner, find and eat the tempting pieces of fat. In the morning a
good number are sure to be found dead; the survivors, apparently
concluding that there is something very wrong about the place, take
themselves off for a time to another neighbourhood; and the comparative
silence which reigns at night is a pleasant change after the chorus of
their querulous, uncanny voices.
The partiality of jackals and crows for ostrich-eggs, expensive though
it is to us, reflects credit on their taste; for the eggs are certainly
delicious. Those which, being useless for setting, found their way into
my kitchen, were always most acceptable; and I have never had lighter
cakes, nicer omelettes, custards, etc., than those made from them. And
then they go so far! Two large square biscuit tins can be filled to
overflowing with a noble batch of sponge finger biscuits, for which
only one egg has been used. In spite of its large size--equalling
twenty-four fowls' eggs--an ostrich-egg has no coarse flavour. It takes
an hour to boil one hard; in which state it is a splendid article of
food for baby ostriches.
Ostrich-eggs were much prized by the ancient Egyptians; and Gardiner
Wilkinson tells us that they "were required for some ornamental or
religious use, as with the modern Copts; and, with the plumes, formed
part of the tribute imposed by the Egyptians on conquered countries."
Not long ago, T---- and I were much amused by the discovery, among
copious notes in an old Bible dated 1770, of the following passage from
a quaint old writer: "The Ostrich, which the _Arabians_ call _Naama_,
is a wild Bird of the Shape of a Goose, but much bigger than that; it
is very high upon its Legs, and has a Neck of more than four or five
Spans long: The Body is very gross, and in its Wings and Tail it has
large Feathers black and white (like those of the Stork) and some grey;
it cannot fly, but it runs very fast; in which it is much assisted by
the Motion of its Wings and Tail: And when it runs, it wounds itself
with the Spurs which it has on its Legs. It is bred in the dry Deserts,
where there is no Water, and lays ten or twelve Eggs together in the
Sand, some as large as a great Bowl, and some less. They say this Bird
hath so little Memory that as soon as she hath made an End of laying
her Eggs, she forgets the Place where she left them; so that when the
Hen comes to a Place where there are Eggs, let them be her own or not,
she sets abrood upon them, and hatches them; and as soon as the
Chickens are hatched, they immediately run about the Country to look
for Meat; and they are so nimble, when they are little, before their
Feathers grow, that 'tis impossible to overtake them."
One is inclined to think that the old author, Marmol, from whose
"History of Africa" the above passage is quoted, cannot have written
from any very accurate acquaintance with the Dark Continent; at any
rate, it is not likely that he ever saw an ostrich, or he would have
known that it possesses no spurs.
It is a strange fact that the most savage ostrich, if he comes up and
finds you between himself and his nest, does not, as would naturally be
supposed, rush to defend his eggs, and, if possible, kick you to death,
but is instantly changed into the most abjectly submissive of
creatures. "'Umble" as Uriah Heep, he squats at your feet; making a
peculiar rattling noise with his wings, biting the ground, snapping his
bill, closing his eyes, and looking the very embodiment of imbecility
as he meekly implores you to spare his eggs. This suppliant posture is,
however, not to be trusted; and, if tackey-less, you had better remain
at the nest until assistance--or night--comes, for if once the
positions of yourself and bird are reversed, "Richard's himself again."
He squats, no longer in servile entreaty, but in defiance; and his
challenge is promptly followed by a charge. The hen ostrich, being
destitute of a voice, has but one way of calling her chicks, which is
by that same rattling and rustling of the wings.
In strong contrast to the usual anxiety of the paternal ostrich for his
nest was one case of which we heard. In a breeding-camp, containing a
cock and two hens, troublesome complications had arisen. One hen
persisted in sitting, while the other was as resolutely bent on laying;
and, the struggles of the two rivals for the possession of the nest
being extremely perilous to the eggs, the Boer to whom the trio
belonged removed the laying hen from the enclosure. Now came the cock's
turn to be excited. The departed hen was evidently his favourite wife;
and, disconsolate at her loss, he ran restlessly about the camp for
some time, _brooming_ repeatedly; then, as if struck by some sudden
impulse--probably of spite against his master--he ran to the nest, on
which he deliberately jumped till he had broken every egg.
One of our birds was a morose old bachelor. Whether he had remained
single from choice, or whether his surly temper had made him so
unpopular that no hen would cast in her lot with him, we knew not; but
there he was, living in solitary grandeur on the lower slope of our big
mountain. Every time we took a certain favourite walk, a portion of
which he had marked out as his beat, he would dispute the right of way
with us; resenting the invasion of his solitude with more fuss than was
ever made by the father of the largest family of chicks. Sometimes he
would lie in ambush, and rush out at us from unexpected places, with
all the artfulness of a rogue elephant. Fortunately, his domain being
on the mountain-side, there was plenty of high bush, behind which it
was not difficult to dodge him.