Another ostrich, running up against some projecting ends of wire, tore his throat open; inflicting so deep a gash as to divide the œsophagus. 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.