OSTRICHES (_continued_).
Vagaries of an incubator--Hatching the chicks--A bad egg--Human
foster-mothers--Chicks difficult to rear--"Yellow-liver"--Cruel
boys--Chicks herded by hen ostrich--Visit to Boer's house--A
carriage full of ostriches--"The melancholy Jaques"--Ostriches
at sea--A stampede--Runaway birds--Branding--Stupidity of ostriches
--Accidents--Waltzing and fighting--Ostrich soup--An expensive
quince--A feathered Tantalus--Strange things swallowed by ostriches
--A court-martial--The ostrich, or the diamond?--A visit to the Zoo.
An incubator, considerably increasing as it does the number of chicks
that can be hatched, is of course of the greatest value on a farm. We
had one, capable of holding sixty eggs; and a "finisher," in which
thirty more could be placed. Two paraffin lamps, kept constantly
burning, heated the large tank of the incubator; and a thermometer,
inserted in the water, had to be carefully watched in order that the
temperature of the latter might neither exceed nor fall below 103°.
Beneath the tank--so that the eggs, as in nature, might be heated from
above--were four drawers, each with compartments for fifteen eggs. I was
appointed manager of the incubator; and morning and evening--following
the example of the hen ostrich--I gave the eggs their quarter of an
hour's cooling by allowing the drawers to stand open; also, as she does,
I carefully turned each egg.
The regulation of the temperature was a matter of some anxiety, and
enabled me--especially on first undertaking the work--to form a very
good idea of the responsibilities of a vestal tending the sacred fire.
Some mischievous imp seemed to be perpetually at work causing that
thermometer to indulge in the wildest vagaries. Perhaps just one degree
of the required temperature would be wanting; and though, for the best
part of the morning, I had been coming anxiously every ten minutes or
so to look at the thermometer, it refused, with all the perversity of
"a watched pot," to rise above 102°. Then at last, a little off my
guard, and absorbed in one of the numerous other home duties, I might
possibly forget the incubator's existence for a little while; and, on
suddenly remembering and running to it, find that the treacherous
mercury had jumped up two or three degrees. Then the drawers would have
to be thrown open, and the contents of several jugs of cold water
wildly dashed in through the opening at the top of the incubator--and
when at last, by still trembling hands, the thermometer was readjusted
in the said opening, it would probably register as many degrees _below_
as it had just been above 103°. T---- was away for three weeks during
the time the incubator was in full work; and so great was the anxiety
which haunted me, lest on his return I should present him with some
sixty cooked birds, that I set an alarum every night for two o'clock,
to assure myself that the temperature was playing me no tricks.
When within about eight or ten days of hatching, the chick can be felt
moving about in the egg; and later on, when nearly ready to come out,
he is heard squeaking, and tapping with his bill against the shell.
Then at last, one day, when you come to turn the eggs in the finisher,
where they are placed for the last fortnight, you find one with a hole
in it--generally a three-cornered piece is knocked clean out--and in
the opening a pinkish, soft-looking bill is making impatient movements,
and a bright eye is peeping at you as knowingly as though already well
acquainted with all the ways of a world on which its owner has yet to
enter. An ostrich, by the way, seems far more intelligent as a baby
than he ever is in after life.
A strong chick is generally able to free himself, by his own unaided
efforts, from the shell; but if after a certain number of hours he is
not out, it becomes necessary to assist him. This, however, requires
extreme gentleness and caution, as there is great risk of inflicting
injury; and, although I have helped many young ostriches into the
world--losing but one patient in all my practice--I always preferred
leaving that delicate work to nature. And yet there is something so
tempting about these little half-opened parcels; one always longs to
undo them and have a full view of the contents. The moment the little
fellow is out of the egg, he seems to swell out, and looks so large
that you wonder how he can possibly have been packed away in such a
small space; and I am quite sure that the task of replacing him in the
shell would as far surpass the powers of "all the king's horses and all
the king's men," as did the reintegration of Humpty Dumpty.
Occasionally--and even at this time and distance it is hardly to be
recalled without a shudder--the incubator would contain a bad egg.
Imagine all the horrors of a bad hen's egg, multiplied by twenty-four!
The whole drawer would be so pervaded by the odour that it was
difficult for some time to discover the actual offender; and when at
last it revealed itself by an uncanny moisture exuding through the
shell, an amount of courage and caution was required for its removal
and safe depositing outside, which suggested very flattering
comparisons of one's own conduct with that of a soldier winning the
V.C. by carrying away a live shell.
An incautious friend of T----'s was too closely investigating a
doubtful ostrich-egg, when it exploded with a loud report. He was an
old gentleman, with a beautiful white beard; and his condition, as
described by T----, who--luckily from a safe distance--witnessed the
accident, is best left to the imagination. Suffice it to say that an
immediate and prolonged bath was imperative, and that a whole suit of
clothes had to be destroyed.
In the days when chicks were so valuable, people who did not possess
incubators sometimes had recourse to a strange way of hatching those
eggs which, during the sitting, were either left orphaned by accident,
or, as in the case of Jackie, deserted in consequence of floods. Some
poor old Hottentot woman would be carefully tucked up, in company with
the eggs, under numerous blankets,--where she would remain bed-ridden
until she had hatched out the last chick. Sometimes, even, the stout,
lethargic Dutch _vrouw_ herself, to whose indolent nature the task was
doubtless congenial enough, would perform the part of foster-mother.
When, either by natural or artificial means, the little ostriches are
safely brought into the world, the farmer's next anxiety is to keep
them there. They do well enough on the coast; but in the Karroo they
are most difficult to rear, and our experience with them has been sad
and disheartening. Numbers of them die, when about a month or five
weeks old, from an epidemic which comes and goes in the strangest
manner. During a whole season, for instance, one farmer will lose
nearly every chick; while brood after brood will be successfully reared
by another at no very great distance. Next year, perhaps, it is the
turn of the latter to be the sufferer; and _vice versa_. _Our_ unlucky
year had a most promising beginning, unusually good rains having filled
the country with nests; yet at the end of the season all we had to show
of the rising generation of ostriches was a poor little troop of
fifteen lanky, ragged-looking creatures, which through some rare
toughness of constitution had survived the perils of infancy--over two
hundred having succumbed.
The disappointment of losing the chicks is much intensified by the fact
that they always begin so well. For the first three weeks nothing can
be more encouraging than the appearance of the stout, sturdy toddlers;
they eat voraciously and are full of life and spirits, waltzing, in
absurd imitation of their elders, to show their joy on being first let
out in the morning--the effort usually ending in a comical sprawl on
the back.
Again and again comes the delusive hope that the spell is broken at
last; that the luck has turned, and that _this_ little brood is really
going to live. But alas!--one morning, during that fatal fourth week,
you notice that one little head, instead of being held up saucily and
independently, is poking forward and downward in a dejected manner with
which you are only too well acquainted. You know at once that the owner
of that head is doomed, and that it will not be long before most, if
not all, of his brethren show the same dreaded symptom. The disease is
quite incurable--indeed, I have never known of an ostrich, old or
young, recovering from any illness whatever; and though we tried all
possible kinds of medicine, diet, and treatment, resolutely refusing to
despair of any case while a spark of life remained, those chicks
persisted in dying, sometimes at the rate of three or four a day. I was
hospital nurse, and so deeply did I take to heart the loss of patient
after patient that it became a joke with T----; and a plentiful
sprinkling of grey happening just at this time to make its appearance
on my head, he still attributes each silver thread to a little dead
ostrich. A post-mortem examination of chicks which have died of this
disease shows the liver to be of the bright colour of orange-peel.
Internal parasites also destroy a good many chicks; and altogether the
little lives are precarious, and every troop of young birds
successfully reared in the Karroo is a triumph.
For the first two or three months the chicks are herded near the
house by boys, whose duty it is to keep them well supplied with
prickly pear leaves and other green food, cut up small. This work
ought to take up the greater part of the young herd's time;
but--small boys being no more satisfactory as servants in the Karroo
than they are anywhere else--we found it necessary to keep a very
strict watch; and often during the day, however busy I might be, I
would "make time" to run down to the shady spot which was the chicks'
place of encampment--generally to find the infants hungry, and their
useless nurse either asleep or plunged in some absorbing business of
his own with a knife and a piece of wood. Sometimes, too, the boys,
getting impatient with the chicks, were rough and cruel; one budding
criminal especially was several times caught making footballs of his
innocent charges, kicking them up several feet into the air. And on a
farm where T---- was once staying, a juvenile black fiend was found
to have deliberately broken the legs of some twenty chicks under his
care; and, when asked the reason of his conduct, said, "They run
about, give me too much trouble."
The chicks are often attacked by old birds--always spiteful to little
ones which are not their own--and we have had several kicked to death
by their vindictive elders. On a neighbouring farm, however, dwelt the
usual exception to the rule, in the shape of an old hen, which--although
herself not a mother--showed such a strong affection for chicks, and
took such devoted care of them, that at last, much to her delight, she
was appointed to the post of herd, _vice_ the small boy, dismissed as
incorrigible. She filled the place of the latter far better than he
had ever done; leading the little creatures, with the greatest care,
wherever the tenderest _veldt_ was to be found; never losing her temper
with them, or failing to bring the full number home to bed at sundown;
and altogether acquitting herself in a wonderfully sedate and
business-like manner for so scatter-brained a creature as an ostrich.
Her history ought of course to have ended here; but truth compels me to
state that at last, after she had successfully brought up many families
of chicks, and had come to be respected and trusted as the steadiest
and most useful of farm-servants, one day the idiotic ostrich-nature
asserted itself; she took a sudden and senseless fright--probably at
nothing--lost her wits, bolted right away, leaving the chicks to get
dispersed about the _veldt_, where only a few were found; and was
herself never heard of again.
I think our friends at home would have been rather amused if they could
have seen us one day, driving home from Mount Stewart with _twelve
ostriches_ in our extremely small American spider. On our way to a farm
where T---- had business we happened to pass a Dutchman's house, round
the door of which we noticed a lively little brood of chicks running
about. T---- of course no sooner saw them than he coveted them (he
frankly confesses himself quite unable to keep the tenth commandment as
far as ostriches are concerned); and we pulled up, accepted the
hospitable invitation of the Boer, who doubtless read in our eyes the
chance of "doing a deal," and went into the house, where, first of all,
a solemn, silent, and apparently endless course of hand-shaking had to
be gone through. The Cape Dutch living in very patriarchal fashion,
there were not only a wife and many sons and daughters, but a
well-preserved parental couple, a mother-in-law, several sons and
daughters-in-law, and--needless to say--a crowd of children of all
sizes, including two babies. All but the two last came forward one
after another and gravely took our hands; then we all sat round the
room, solemnly looking at each other, and T---- and I felt as if we
were at a funeral. We would have been thankful to have fled; but--our
own birds not having begun laying--we did so want those chicks, and we
felt that it was worth while to endure something for their sakes.
Presently coffee was handed round in huge cups, evidently more than
half filled with sugar. The more highly the good _vrouw_ wishes to
honour you, the more horribly and sickeningly she over-sweetens your
cup of tea or coffee; and the syrup we had to drink on this occasion
left no doubt as to the kindly feeling of our hosts towards us. The
entrance of the tray was the signal for conversation to commence; and,
once set free, it flowed abundantly. As we sat drinking our coffee and
talking of everything _but_ the business on which we were bent, our
thoughts flashed back to Oriental _bazaars_, where these identical
preliminaries are necessary to every bargain. The relationship of
everybody present to everybody else was accurately explained to us,
with much pointing, or clapping on the back, as the case might be; and
we in our turn were minutely questioned as to our names, ages, number
of brothers and sisters and other relatives, etc.; the women again
bringing back Eastern recollections by their resemblance to the
inquisitive, chattering inmates of harems. Then T---- ventured to lead
the conversation round to the coveted chicks; but it was a little too
soon, the subject was abruptly dropped, and we again waded through all
manner of irrelevant talk until, a becoming time having elapsed, and
the requirements of etiquette being satisfied, the business was allowed
to commence.
After such an inauguration, it may well be imagined that the bargain
was not concluded in a hurry; and we had paid a tediously long visit
before we were at last the happy possessors of the chicks for which we
had suffered so much; and, putting them loose into the spider at our
feet, where--being about as large as ducks--they made rather a tight
fit, drove off with them.
A little further on, at another Dutchman's house, and with more
bargaining, we bought a young _paauw_ (pronounced "pow"). This game
bird (the great bustard) grows to an immense size, some being
occasionally shot which measure nine feet across the outspread wings;
but fortunately--considering the number of passengers already on
board--the present specimen, being but a chick, was no larger than a
fine fowl.
When we arrived at last at our original destination, the young ladies
of the house presented us with a pretty little baby hare, which had
just been caught; and with this wee creature nestling in my lap, and
the _paauw_ and the ostriches all scrambling about among our legs and
apparently not on the best of terms, we drove the twenty miles home.
The poor _paauw_ was very unhappy, and kept bewailing his fate in a
long, weird cry, like the moaning of the wind; whence he immediately
acquired his name of "the melancholy Jaques." We had an amusing though
rather anxious journey; for the spider--consisting simply of a kind of
magnified Japanese tea-tray, supporting the lightest of seats, and
mounted on four wheels, almost bicycle-like in their slenderness--was
hardly the safest thing in which to convey restless live stock which
was not fastened or secured in any way. The road, too, was terrible;
indeed, in one place it resembled a steep, rocky staircase, and after
every bad jolt I looked anxiously back to see if any of our creatures
were lying on the ground. Thanks to T----'s careful driving, however,
we brought the whole collection safely home, none the worse for their
long journey.
Jaques, I may as well mention here, soon grew very tame; but, being--we
never knew why--persistently snubbed by all the other pets, was driven
to the companionship of the fowls, with which he struck up a close
friendship; spending most of his time among them, and always coming
with them to be fed. He would also forage about in the kitchen for
scraps; and, if disappointed in his search, would utter his desponding
cry, and seem quite heart-broken. He was a handsome bird; with
delicately-pencilled plumage of different shades of grey and brown, a
little neat crest on his head, and absurdly small feet, which looked as
if they could not possibly support so large a body. Unfortunately, poor
Jaques did not live to attain his full size, but poisoned himself with
pumpkin seeds; which had been carelessly dropped on the kitchen floor,
in spite of repeated orders that these seeds--being a deadly poison to
turkeys--should always be instantly burnt as soon as a pumpkin was cut
open. We lost several of our turkeys through the neglect of this rule
by the stupid Hottentot girls.
Although little ostriches are such good travellers, it is anything but
easy to transport full-grown ones about the world. They are wretched
sailors, as T---- has found to his cost; for when, some time ago, he
took several pairs of birds to Sydney, about half of them died at sea.
The day before they were shipped from Port Elizabeth they were placed
in a store where there was a large quantity of tobacco, on which some
of them regaled, with the consequence that before they had been at sea
a week three were dead from nicotine poisoning. T---- does not mind a
story told against himself, so I may mention that a plan adopted by him
with a view to ensuring the comfort and cleanliness of the birds during
the voyage did not--as regards the former advantage--turn out quite a
success. He carpeted the pens with cocoa-nut matting; and when the
vessel began to roll, and the birds sat down, their legs were terribly
chafed and rubbed by the roughness of the matting. And although T----,
to procure rag wherewith to bind up their sores, recklessly sacrificed
shirts, pocket-handkerchiefs, and whatever other linen came to hand,
several succumbed. The survivors did so well in Australia that
arrangements were made to carry on ostrich-farming in that country on a
large scale; and T---- was about to export two hundred birds when the
Cape Government, hearing of the project, imposed an export duty of £100
on every ostrich, and £5 on each egg.
Ostriches are very bad railway travellers; and avail themselves of
every possible opportunity of coming to grief in the cattle-trucks; in
which they often seem to be too closely packed. And as for their
behaviour when travelling on foot, T---- has had some experience of the
infinity of trouble they can give to those in charge of them. Having
once bought a troop of ninety birds on the West Coast, he accompanied
them himself on the long journey to Port Elizabeth. One night there was
a stampede; and when daylight broke over the vast plain not one ostrich
was in sight. Of course "there was mounting in hot haste;" and poor
T---- had to ride about the country after the runaways, which were so
dispersed that they could only be collected by twos and threes. He had
two days of very hard work before he succeeded in getting them all
together again.
When T---- first started ostrich-farming, a good many years ago, he and
his partners--little knowing the "kittle cattle" with which they had to
deal--thought they would do without fencing. They soon found all their
birds gone; and had to scour the country for hundreds of miles in
pursuit of their erratic stock, riding all their horses to death.
Profiting by this sad experience, T---- has carefully fenced Swaylands
in all directions except where the steepness of the mountain forms a
natural barrier. Yet in spite of all the trouble and money spent--and
enclosing is one of the heaviest of all expenses incurred in starting a
new farm--our birds were continually getting away. We have unfortunately
the great disadvantage of a high-road running straight through the farm;
and often a lazy Boer, thinking it too much trouble to kick away the
stone with which he had propped the gate open while his waggons passed
through--though T---- had carefully adjusted that gate to fall to and
close itself--would cause the loss of several of our birds; which of
course might or might not be heard of again. On one occasion over twenty
birds seem to have gone out in a body, owing to the gate being left
open; and only a few were eventually recovered.
Some birds--artful old rovers who have been away before and have tasted
the joys of freedom--will spend days running up and down along the side
of the fence; keeping the gate well in sight, and watching for the
chance of its being left open.
The family of one of our herds, living close to a gate, were supposed
to act as lodge-keepers; but--like most of the coloured race--they
could never be induced to attend steadily and systematically to their
duty, and we often found the gate wide open, inviting an exodus of
birds. A fine of five shillings was imposed for each offence; but the
hardened sinners knew that T----'s kind heart made him reluctant to
enforce the penalty.
Ostriches, when very firmly bent on escaping, and finding no gate open,
will sometimes charge the fence; and, though occasionally one will
succeed in tumbling safely over and getting away, the clumsy
performance most frequently results in broken legs.
Runaway birds are far from being the least among the many trials of an
ostrich-farmer's life; and the annual losses caused by them even exceed
in number those resulting from accident. Then they involve such endless
waste of time and trouble. T---- was continually riding about,
searching and making inquiries, often in vain, for lost ostriches. When
he was fortunate enough to find one, or hear of its whereabouts; or
perhaps see, from the advertised description of its brand, that it was
an inmate of some distant pound, two of the herds--never spared without
difficulty from other work--would be sent, often a long journey of
three or more days, to bring it back.
A returning runaway, always a joyful sight to us, was also rather a
laughable one. As he was marched along between the two men, each with a
tight grip on his shoulder, he looked just like a pickpocket in the
hands of the police, going to prison; and a large piece of sacking,
roughly sewn round his body to give his captors a firmer hold, made him
appear as though already in convict dress. Then, to prevent his giving
trouble on the road, his head would be in a bag. As often as not this
bag would be one of my pillow-cases, surreptitiously abstracted by
T---- from the linen-drawer before sending off the men.
The very necessary operation of branding is performed on the ostrich's
large, bare thigh, which seems just made for the purpose. Sometimes a
considerable number of our young or newly-purchased birds would be
branded at once. The irons with our brand, the Turkish crescent, were
heated in a little portable forge placed in one corner of the
plucking-kraal; and each poor bird in turn received the mark of our
ownership with an agonized start on one side; the smell, and the
hissing sound of the frizzling flesh always reminding me unpleasantly
of the horrible performances of the _Aïssaoua_, which (because every
one else went) I was once foolish enough to go and see in Algiers. Old
birds, which have frequently changed hands, sometimes display a fine
collection of initials and different designs, covering both thighs.
Unfortunately, branding is not always the safeguard against theft which
it is intended to be; for there are quite as many dishonest people in
the Cape Colony as elsewhere (if not rather more), and it is no
uncommon trick to obliterate the brand of a bird which has come astray
by applying over it a much larger one--a "frying-pan" brand, as one
hears it occasionally called by victims.
As regards the stupidity of ostriches, although indeed they are falsely
accused on one point; that of hiding their small heads in the sand and
imagining therefore that their large bodies are quite invisible to the
foe, they do many other things quite as foolish, and--to revert again
to the Book of Job--their character could not possibly have been more
perfectly summed up than it is in the words: "Because God hath deprived
her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to her understanding." And,
indeed, no one looking at the ostrich's ridiculous little head, so flat
immediately above the eyes as to leave no room for any brain, can
wonder that he is an imbecile; possessing even less intelligence than a
common fowl, and not recognizing the man who has fed him every day for
years, if the latter comes to the camp in a coat or hat to which he is
unaccustomed. A friend of T----'s was attacked and knocked down by one
of his own ostriches, an old bird which had been constantly fed by him,
but which, on seeing him for the first time in a black hat, took him
for a stranger. Fortunately T---- was with him, and, having brought a
tackey--in spite of assurances that none would be needed--came promptly
to the rescue.
Ostriches are long-lived creatures; indeed, it is impossible to say
what venerable age they may be capable of attaining, for, however old
they become, they never show any signs of decrepitude, nor do their
feathers deteriorate; while, as for an ostrich dying of old age, I do
not believe any one has ever heard of such a thing. But it is accident
which, sooner or later, ends the career of nearly every ostrich; and in
about ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the disaster is, in one way or
another, the result of the bird's own stupidity. There surely does not
exist a creature--past earliest infancy--more utterly incapable of
taking care of itself than an ostrich; yet he is full of conceit, and
resents the idea of being looked after by his human friends; and when,
in spite of all their precautions for his safety, he has succeeded in
coming to grief, he quietly opposes every attempt to cure his injuries,
and at once makes up his mind to die. If his hurt is not sufficiently
severe to kill him, he will attain his object by moping and refusing to
eat--anyhow, he dies--often apparently for no other reason than because
his master, against whom he has always had a grudge, wishes him to
live. He seems to die out of spite; just as a Hindoo servant will
starve himself, waste rapidly away, and finally come and expire at the
gate of the employer with whom he is offended.
The worst and most frequent accidents by which ostriches contrive to
make away with themselves are broken legs; these--even were the
patients tractable--it would be impossible to cure, owing to the
strange fragility of that limb which, as we have seen, is capable of
inflicting so deadly a kick,--and any poor bird which breaks a leg has
to be instantly killed. The bone seems almost as brittle as porcelain;
and a comparatively slight blow is enough to splinter it into just such
jagged and pointed fragments as result from breaking the spout of a
china teapot.
One very fruitful source of broken legs is the dervish-like habit
ostriches have of waltzing when in particularly good spirits, and
especially when first turned out of the kraal in the morning. They go
sailing along so prettily in the bright sunshine; their beautiful
wings, spread and erect, giving them at a little distance the
appearance of white balloons; but they have a sad tendency to become
giddy and tumble down, and, knowing the frailty of their legs, we do
not look with unmixed pleasure on the graceful performance. Some birds,
indeed, have the sense to save themselves by "reversing," which they do
as cleverly as practised human dancers; but the accomplishment seems
rare among them, and we calculate that waltzing costs us eight or ten
per cent. per annum.
Then they often fight savagely; and the terrific "thud" of the blows
they deal upon each other's bodies makes one tremble lest the next kick
should fall on one of the brittle legs; as indeed frequently happens.
One day (a long drought having brought our birds round the house), two
splendid young cocks began fighting close to the windows. In an instant
one of them was down; with his leg snapped across, and all but knocked
off, by a frightful blow. T---- being from home, I had to go and
inspect the poor bird's injuries--a sickening sight--and do him the
only kindness possible, that of ordering his immediate execution. A
couple of hours later, some of the flesh from one massive thigh was
simmering in my stock-pot, sending forth a most delicious odour; while
both legs, joints from which indeed to "cut and come again," dwarfed
the proportions of the Angora meat as they hung beside it, high out of
reach of dog or jackal, in our open-air larder. For when by some
untoward accident, such as that just described, our birds came suddenly
by their death, we had the very small and melancholy consolation of
eating them. That is to say, following the example of French
frog-eaters, we ate the legs only; there being no meat whatever on any
other part of the creature's body. Instead of having a nice plump
breast, like that of a fowl, turkey, or any other of the Carinatæ or
keel-breasted birds, the ostrich has a flat breast-bone and large ribs
shaped wonderfully like those of a human being. His body is always
bony; and, however well you may feed him, the nourishment all seems to
go to his legs. An unpleasant stringiness prevents ostrich-steaks from
being quite nice, but the soup is perfection. I never tasted any quite
equal to it; although some, made from the enormous tortoises found
occasionally on the _veldt_, came very near it in goodness. The best
beef-stock is not to be compared with ostrich-soup; and I imagine the
latter would be a most nourishing food for invalids. An ostrich which
has died in good condition has a large quantity of beautiful, soft,
bright yellow fat. This, being most useful, is always carefully put
away in jars; and there is no fat equal to it for guns, saddles,
harness, boots, etc.
Besides waltzing and fighting, there are endless other ways in which
ostriches--always ingenious in devising plans for their own
destruction--manage to get their legs broken, and their throats
consequently cut; but the favourite form of _felo-de-se_ is collision
with the wire fences. These seem to have some magnetic attraction for
the _vogels_, as the Dutch call them--the word, appropriately enough,
too, being pronounced "fools."
[Illustration: OSTRICH-CHICK.
(_Photographed from case in Stanley and African Exhibition_.)]
[Illustration: OSTRICHES MEDITATING ESCAPE THROUGH DEFECTIVE FENCE.]
"Another bird killed in the wires!" How familiar any one living on an
ostrich farm becomes with these words of woe! Anything, or nothing--the
latter indeed more frequently--suffices either to frighten or embolden
an ostrich into flinging himself headlong into the nearest fence. The
appearance of a strange dog, for instance--and in spite of strict
orders the Kaffirs always _will_ bring dogs about the place--is quite
certain, whatever may be the view taken of it by the ostrich, to lead
but to one result. Say the dog is coming along on the opposite side of
the fence. An imbecile boldness and pugnacity straightway inspire the
ostrich; he has no eyes for anything but the dog, and, leaving the
fence entirely out of his calculations, he makes a mad, blind charge,
which lands him well in the wires; and if he is extricated from the
latter with unbroken legs, his owner may be congratulated on a very
unusual stroke of luck. If, on the other hand, the dog and bird are on
the same side of the fence--then, even Burns's mouse had no greater
"panic" in his "breastie" than that which impels the senseless biped to
dash straight into the wires on his left; though miles of unfenced
_veldt_, along which he might run with safety and soon distance the
dog, stretch away to his right. The dog, of course, was not in either
case troubling his head about the ostrich; and only wonders what all
the commotion is about.
One of T----'s birds performed the "happy despatch" in quite a novel
manner. Seeing a tempting quince growing on the further side of a
hedge, he squeezed his head and neck through a narrow fork in the
branches to reach it. Having secured and eaten his prize, he tried to
draw his head back. But what was difficult enough before was now
impossible; his neck, bulging with the quince, kept him a prisoner,
there was no one at hand to help, and the more he tugged and jumped in
the frenzied manner of ostriches when held by the head, the more firmly
he stuck. And he was found at last, with his neck broken, and his head,
to all intents and purposes, pulled off.
Another ostrich, running up against some projecting ends of wire, tore
his throat open; inflicting so deep a gash as to divide the oesophagus.
T---- (surgeon as well as everything else a colonist requires to be)
went in quest of needle and thread to sew up the wound; and, on
returning, found that his patient, having discovered a sack of mealies,
was busily helping himself to the contents; though with the
unsatisfactory result that the food, as soon as swallowed, tumbled out
again through the slit in his throat. Nothing daunted, however, and
apparently insensible to pain, the feathered Tantalus continued to
feed; wondering no doubt why, having eaten so much, he remained hungry.
Thanks to T----'s care, this bird, a rare exception to the general rule
of wounded ostriches, actually recovered.
Talking of the ostrich's food-passage, it is rather a curious sight to
watch the progress of a large bone, or of a good beakful of mealies, as
it travels down the long throat of the bird. During its journey, the
large, slowly-moving lump is seen to make the circuit of the whole
neck, and while passing round the back of the latter it looks comical
indeed. Queer things sometimes find their way down this tortuous
passage; the excessive queerness of some of them giving rise to the
frequent boast of those persons fortunately able to eat anything,
fearless of consequences, that they "have the digestion of an ostrich."
But those miscellaneous collections of old bones, glass and china,
stones, jewellery, hardware, and odds and ends of all sorts, with which
the creature stores his interior, till one is reminded of Mark Twain's
"solid dog," fed on paving-stones--far from showing that an ostrich has
a good digestion, are necessary to prevent his having a very bad one.
They are, of course, simply his teeth, the millstones which grind his
food; only they are situated in his stomach instead of in his mouth,
and, on an immensely-magnified scale, they only perform the work of
those grains of sand with which the little cage-bird keeps himself
healthy. Certainly ostriches occasionally show a sad want of
discrimination, and make choice of articles which are quite unsuitable
for their purpose. The manager's lighted pipe, for instance, was
snatched and greedily swallowed by one of our birds before any one
could stop him; and for a while the thief was very anxiously watched to
see if evil consequences would ensue. Luckily, however, the strange
fare did not seem to disagree with him. Another bird picked a gimlet
out of a post, in which, for one moment, it had been carelessly left
sticking--tossed it down his throat, and was none the worse for it.
Ostriches, like magpies, are attracted by everything bright and
glittering; hence the frequent and just complaints brought against them
for theft. But their own interior is the only hiding-place where they
bestow the precious stones and other articles of jewellery which,
whenever they have a chance, they will always steal.
One day, while yet new to the colony, and to the ways of ostriches, I
was standing with T----by the side of one of the camps, looking over
the fence at the birds, and much amused by the curious, dancing manner
in which the creatures moved, as if hung on wires; when suddenly one of
them, with a motion as quick as lightning, made a dash at my earring, a
little round knob of gold, exactly the size and colour of a mealie
(Indian corn seed), for which perhaps he took it; and I only drew back
just in time to save it--and probably a piece of the ear with it--from
going down his throat.
A newly-arrived gentleman was less fortunate. He, too, was looking over
a fence into a camp, when the sharp eye of an ostrich spied a beautiful
diamond in his pin, and in an instant the jewel was picked out and
swallowed. A kind of court-martial was held on the ostrich; the
relative values of himself and of the diamond being accurately
calculated, that his judges might decide whether he should live or die.
Fortunately for him it was just the time when ostriches were expensive;
and his value was estimated at £100, while the diamond was only worth
£90. Those £10 saved his life; and the diamond was allowed to remain
and perform the part of an extra-good millstone in his interior. Had he
waited till the present time to furnish his internal economy thus
expensively he would have been very promptly sacrificed. But people
should not wear diamonds on ostrich farms.
When, soon after our return from the Cape, we were staying for a time
in London, one of our first expeditions was to the Zoo. There, with
great delight and amusement, we walked about, looking up one after
another of our old South African friends. But it was a cold, gloomy
day; and in the houses as well as out of doors the exiles from that
sunny land seemed much depressed by their changed conditions of
climate. The meerkats, curled up in a half-torpid state, were no longer
the merry little rogues they had once been, when in happier days they
stood on their hind legs outside their burrows, toasting their little
backs in their native sunshine. The baboon was morose; the snakes
sleepy; the African buffalo no longer terrible as in the wilds of his
old home, but a poor dejected creature, utterly crushed and
broken-hearted by long residence under cold, grey skies. Altogether,
everything hailing from Austral Africa looked very homesick that dull
day, with the sole exception of the secretary bird, which, after a long
and persevering search--for old Jacob's sake--we at last succeeded in
finding. He was a delightful bird; as tame as our own old friend, and
evidently a great favourite with his keeper. We felt wickedly covetous,
as the man, pleased at the interest we showed, put the intelligent bird
through a number of comical performances, which included the "killing"
of a stuffed ratskin, kept for the purpose of displaying how the
secretary in his wild state beats to death the mice, lizards, and other
creatures on which he feeds.
But where were the ostriches? Just as actors, when they have a holiday,
usually spend it in going to the theatre, so, of all the creatures in
the Zoo, those we were most anxious to see were the great birds of
whose company during the last few years we might reasonably be supposed
to have had enough. But no ostriches were to be seen; and the keeper of
whom we inquired told us that all were dead. On asking the cause of
death, we heard that it was "because the people fed them on pennies."
We went to the office of the secretary of the gardens, and found that
this statement was really true, and that the post-mortem examination of
each poor bird had brought to light a large number of copper coins
which had been swallowed. We were glad to hear that any ostriches kept
in the gardens in future were to be separated by glass from a public
idiotic enough to waste its money in poisoning them.
After this, we were quite able to believe a story told us of how a girl
was one day seen at the Zoo, feeding these same unfortunate birds with
some ten or twelve pairs of old kid gloves, evidently saved up for the
purpose, and presented, one after another, tightly rolled up into a
ball; the creatures gulping them down quite as a matter of course, and
looking out for more.