“One morning,” says Professor Thunberg, “as I rode past a place where a hen-ostrich sat on her nest, the bird sprang up and pursued me, with a view to prevent my noticing her young ones or her eggs. Every time I turned my horse toward her she retreated ten or twelve paces, but as soon as I rode on she pursued me again.”
The period of incubation seems to vary; but, on the average, it may be about thirty-eight days. One or more of the females are said to lay meanwhile; but the supernumerary eggs are placed outside the nest, and are supposed to serve as nourishment for the callow brood. If such really be the case, we in this again see a wonderful provision of nature, inasmuch as the chicken would be unable to digest the indurated matter furnished by their too-often sterile haunts.
The notion so generally entertained of the ostrich merely depositing her eggs in the sand, and leaving them to be vivified by the sun, arises probably from its habit of occasionally quitting the nest in search of food, more especially as it generally does so during the hottest part of the day.
Some travelers affirm that the ostrich not only never sits on her eggs after having once been handled, or even if a man should have passed near the nest, but that she actually destroys them! I, for my part, can not speak to this point, having, whenever I found an ostrich’s nest, usually plundered it at once, thus leaving the bird no opportunity of obeying so strange an instinct.
It seems pretty certain, however, that the ostrich, as with many other birds, is in the habit of deserting her eggs if they be handled. “The slaves,” says Professor Thunberg, “always use the precaution not to take away the eggs with their hands (in which case the birds, who perceive it by scent, are apt to quit the spot), but by means of a long stick they rake them out of the nest as fast as the birds lay them.”
A peculiarity in regard to the eggs of the ostrich, and, so far as I am aware, confined to the eggs of this bird alone, is mentioned by several African travelers. For example: “The farmer here likewise informed me,” says the author just quoted, “that a stone or two is sometimes found in the ostrich’s eggs, which is hard, white, rather flat and smooth, and about the size of a bean. These stones are cut and made into buttons, but I never had the good fortune to see any of them.”
Again: “In these eggs,” writes Barrow, “are frequently discovered a number of small oval-shaped pebbles, about the size of a marrowfat pea, of a pale yellow color, and exceedingly hard. In one egg we found nine, and in another twelve of such stones.”
Notwithstanding the number of eggs laid, seldom more than thirty to thirty-five are hatched. Almost as soon as the chicks (which are about the size of pullets) have escaped from the shell, they are able to walk about and to follow the mother, on whom they are dependent for a considerable period. And Nature, with her usual care, has provided the young with a color and a covering admirably suited to the localities they frequent. The color is a kind of pepper-and-salt, harmonizing wonderfully with the variegated sand and gravel of the plains which they are in the habit of traversing. Indeed, when crouching under my very eyes, I have had the greatest difficulty in discerning the chicks. The covering is neither down nor feathers, but a kind of “prickly external,” which, no doubt, is an excellent protection against injury from the coarse gravel and the stunted vegetation among which they dwell.
The flesh of the young ostrich is not unpalatable, but that of the old bird is any thing but good. To my notion, it tastes very much like that of the zebra. According to the Mosaic law, the ostrich was denounced as an unclean animal, and the Jews were, consequently, forbidden to eat it. The Arabs of the present day still adhere to this prohibition. Some of the native tribes of Southern Africa, however, are less fastidious, and partake of the flesh with great relish, more especially when fat.
Though people at the present day place little or no value on the ostrich as an article of food, the ancient Romans, who were great epicures, seem to have been of a different opinion. We are told by Vobiscus that the pseudo-Emperor Firmus, “equally celebrated for his feats at the anvil and at the trencher, devoured, in his own imperial person, an entire ostrich at one sitting.”[41] The brain of this bird was considered a superlative delicacy; and, like every thing else with that luxurious nation, it was provided on the most magnificent scale. Thus, according to an ancient testimony, the Emperor Heliogabalus was served at a single feast with the brains of six hundred of these birds.[42]