VIEWS OF AN OSTRICH FARM.
It would be delightful to quote without limit from this intensely
interesting book, but there is not time to linger over its pages longer
than to glean a few items:
"There are not many young animals prettier than an 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
gray 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 colored 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-colored strips which formed their baby clothes, and they
enter on an ugly stage, in which they remain for two or three years.
"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.
"At five years of age 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 gray, 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.
"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 inclosure, 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.' 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--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."
In describing the condition of the plumes, this author writes:
"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. Ostrich feathers are quite tabooed by ladies in South
Africa; they are too common, every Kaffir or Hottentot wearing one in
his dirty, tattered hat.
"If an ostrich feather is held upright, its beautiful form, graceful as
the frondlike branch of the cocoanut 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 center, whereas the stems of other feathers
are all more or less on one side."
Ostriches begin to make their nests soon after a good rain. The father
bird becomes very savage, as if to warn all intruders away from the
vicinity of the nest. His note of defiant warning can be heard then in
every direction. He inflates his neck in a cobralike fashion, and gives
utterance to three deep roars; the first two short, 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 when far away.
"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."
When the birds become aggressive, one dares not walk about the camp
unless armed with a weapon called a "tackey." This is merely a long,
stout branch of the mimosa tree, from which all the thorns, except upon
one end, have been stripped. It does not seem to be much of a protection
against so ferocious and formidable a foe, one stroke of whose powerful
leg can easily kill a man, and whose kick, as violent as that of a
horse, is much more dangerous, owing to the terrible claw with which
nature has armed the foot.
Those versed in the use of the tackey allow the enraged assailant to
approach almost unpleasantly near, and then thrust the weapon of defense
boldly in his face just as he is about to strike. The thorns are so
annoying that he is obliged to close his eyes, and can merely run
forward in a blind, helpless fashion. This gives the person bearing the
tackey a chance to spring to one side and to proceed upon his way for
some little distance, before the bewildered bird is ready for another
attack, when he is again met by the same simple but effective
instrument.
Some ludicrous stories are related of the encounters newcomers at the
Cape have had with ostriches. A sturdy newcomer, six feet in height, on
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 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.
He had sat there for hours, nearly roasted alive, and there he would
have had to sit till sundown, but for the timely appearance of his
friends.
Another story is related of a gentleman whose theory was that any
creature, however savage, could be quelled by the human eye. One day he
tried to quell one of his own ostriches, with the result that he was
presently found in a very pitiable predicament, lying flat on the
ground, the subject of his experiment jumping up and down on him, and
occasionally varying the treatment by sitting on him.