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.