' '775- were on the fpot, feemed in the leaft afraid of thefe lions, December. x , »✓-pj though they were as near them as we were. As the lion, feldom or never attacks his prey openly, it feems that he does not ftrike the other animals with any high degree o f terror, except when they take the fcent of him, which nature has rendered highly difguftful to them. This day likewife we feared a male oftrich away from its neft, which was in the middle of the plains. This neft, however, confifted o f nothing but the ground itfelf, on which the eggs lay fcattered and loofe. Hence it follows, that the oftrich does not leave its eggs to be hatched by the fun, but likewife, at leaft in this part of Africa, fits upon them herfelf: we may alfo infer, that the male and the female fit upon them alternately. The Hottentots too allured me o f this fadt, which has hitherto been unknown to naturaiifts. So that T h e v e n o t is in the right when he aflerts, that the oftrich lives in monogamy, or with one female; though he is quite alone in this afiertion: and the practice is contrary to the cuftom of the larger kind o f birds. I do, not pretend by any means to determine the exadt number o f eggs laid by this bird; the number of thofe we at this time found was only eleven; they were all freih, and probably were to have had feveral more added to them. Another time two of my Hottentots feared another oftrich away from its neft, out o f which they took fourteen eggs, - and brought them to me, having left fome behind, which did not feem to them to be quite lb fre lh ; fo that perhaps fixteen, eighteen, or twenty, is the higheft amount of the number of eggs laid by this bird: and yet it appears to me, that that it muft be very difficult for the oftrich to cover fo many with its body. A brood of young ones, fcarcely two feet high, which I faw in the diftridt of Roode-Zand, feemed to me to amount to fome fuch number; but the oftrich- Chicks which I had taken on the 16th o f this month at Kurekoi-ku,. were about a foot in height. May we not likewife conclude from hence, that the oftriches in Africa have no fet times for laying their eggs ? Some of my more obferving readers may, perhaps, wonder how I am able to affure them, that it was a male oftrich which I feared away from the neft. To this I an- iwer, that in all this part of Africa it is looked upon as an in- difputable fadt, that fuch of thefe birds which are males, carry white feathers in their tails and wings, while their backs and bellies are covered with black. Th e females, on the contrary, carry black feathers only in their tails and wings, while thofe on their bodies are of an aih-colour. This likewife accords with the difledtions made of this bird in Europe,. (Vide B u f f o n , p. 429.) What ferves farther to convince me, that the cock oftrich affifts the hen in hatching her eggs, is, that in the neft which I have been juft ipeaklng of, there were found feveral white feathers, as well as a number o f black ones, both of which would naturally fall into it whilft the birds were fitting. N ature, perhaps, has found it the more necefiary to order both fexes. of the oftrich mutually to affift each other in hatching their eggs, as the frame o f their bodies is large, and they are furnifhed with many ftomachs, and at the fame time are craving beyond many others of the feathered race ; fo that they could not bear the ufual courfe of failing during the whole time V o l . II. 11 of
27f 72-2
To see the actual publication please follow the link above