At other times the natives lie in wait near pools frequented by ostriches, and shoot them when they come there to quench their thirst. If the gun be loaded with swan-shot instead of ball, and one aims at the necks, several may be killed at a single discharge; but this plan will, of course, never be adopted by the true sportsman.
Ostriches are also not unfrequently captured in snares (similar to those made use of for entangling smaller species of antelopes), but I have quite forgotten whether by the neck or the leg. A long cord, having at one end a noose, is tied to a sapling, which is bent down, and the noose pinned to the ground in such a manner that when a bird treads within it the sapling springs back by its own natural elasticity, suspending the bird or other animal in the air, and it is only released from its sufferings by death. Strabo and Oppian make mention of snares being employed by the ancients for the capture of ostriches, either alluring them by stratagem into the toils, or driving them en masse by a brisk pursuit with horses and dogs.
But the most ingenious plan of beguiling the ostrich to its destruction is that described by Mr. Moffat and others as practiced among the Bushmen. The reverend gentleman says:
“A kind of flat double cushion is stuffed with straw and formed something like a saddle. All except the under part of this is covered over with feathers attached to small pegs and made so as to resemble the bird. The head and neck of an ostrich are stuffed, and a small rod introduced. The Bushman intending to attack game whitens his legs with any substance he can procure. He places the feathered saddle on his shoulders, takes the bottom part of the neck in his right hand, and his bow and poisoned arrows in his left. Such as the writer has seen were most perfect mimics of the ostrich, and at a few hundred yards’ distance it is not possible for the eye to detect the fraud. This human bird appears to pick away at the verdure, turning the head as if keeping a sharp look-out, shakes his feathers, now walks, and then trots till he gets within bow-shot; and when the flock runs from one receiving an arrow, he runs too. The male ostriches will, on some occasions, give chase to the strange bird, when he tries to elude them in a way to prevent them catching his scent; for when once they do, the spell is broken. Should one happen to get too near in pursuit, he has only to run to windward or throw off his saddle to avoid a stroke from a wing which would lay him prostrate.”
But the ostrich has other enemies besides man. Beasts as well as birds are said to seek and devour their eggs with great avidity. According to Sir James Alexander (given on the authority of the natives about the Orange River), when the birds have left their nest in the middle of the day in search of food, “a white Egyptian vulture may be seen soaring in mid-air with a stone between his talons. Having carefully surveyed the ground below him, he suddenly lets fall the stone, and then follows it in rapid descent. Let the hunter run to the spot, and he will find a nest of probably a score of eggs, some of them broken by the vulture.”
Again, “the jackal is said to roll the eggs together to break them, while the hyæna pushes them off with its nose to break them at a distance.”
Nothing of this kind ever came under my notice, though, on the other hand, I have not unfrequently found the bird itself destroyed by lions, panthers, wild dogs, and other beasts.
CHAPTER XXI.
Sudden Floods.—John Allen’s Sufferings.—Hans and the Author enter into Partnership.—Young Grass injurious to Cattle.—Depart from Walfisch Bay.—Attractive Scenery.—Troops of Lions.—Extraordinary Proceedings of Kites.—Flight of Butterflies.—Attachment of Animals to one another.—Arrival at Richterfeldt; at Barmen.—Hans’s narrow Escape.—Self-possession.—Heavy Rains.—Runaway Ox; he tosses the Author.—Depart from Barmen.—Difficulty of crossing Rivers.—Encounter great numbers of Oryxes.