The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1891-04-11
LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM.

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that women are deficient in humor; but
Mrs. Martins Home Life on an Ost-
rich Farm" George Phillip 4 SOM
ought to make such critics feel very
small indeed. There is not an uninter-
estlng page in this entertaining book
while there are very few pages indeed
which do not contain something genu-
lnely funny. Mrs. Martin seems to have
really enjoyed her South African expert
ences, despite the stupidity OF ostriches,
the exasperating ways Of the native SER
wants and the disasters brought down by
the sudden tropical rains. The book
does not pretent to be, like Messrs.
Mosenthal and Harting's volume, q
scientific handbook of ostrich farming.
1t is gossipy record of experience, ad-
mirably written (some of it was first
printed in the st. James Gazette and
some in the Saturday Review full of
amusement and high spirits.
RUNNING AWAY.
Mrs. Martin soon found that ostriches
are exceedingly fond of running away:
And how they do run! Only startle an
ostrich, and very little is sufficient to do
this, his nerves being of the feeble, and
his heart in his mouth at even the
What jump he gives, and what q
dislocated some of his joints. But no!
off he goes, flinging out his clumsy legs,
and twisting himself about as he runs,
till you alnost expect to see him come to
pieces, or, at any rate, fling off q leg, as
a lobster casts claw or q frightened
lizard parts from its tail. An ostrich's
joints seem to be all loose, like those of
lay-fgure when not properly frightened
up. He rapidly disappears from view;
and the last you see of him is, as Mark
Twain has it, "still neutrality-suspicious.
ly with no intention of stopping till he
has reached the very centre Of Africa.
But his mad scamper will most prob
ably end few miles of, with q tumble
into wire fence and broken leg.
Sometimes, however, ostrichee, when
they take fright, run so long and get so
far away that their owners never recover
them. One we heard of, to whose tail
q mischievous boy had tied newspaper,
went of at railway speed, and no tidings
OF it were ever received.
THE PUGNACrTY OF THE OSTRICH.
The ostrich is most suspicious and
pugnacious creature On one of the
q
height, starting for an early morning
certain camp where the ostriches were
dangerous. He laughed at his friends'
advice, told them be was not afraid of
dicky-bird!" Notwithstanding the prof
fered tackey "a bit of mimosa. busb)-
started off straightway in the forbidden
direction. He did not return home to
dinner; search was made for him and
eventually he was found, perched up on
a high ironstone boulder, just out of
reach Of large ostrich, which was doing
sentry. walking up and down, and keep
ing vicious eye on him. There he had
sat for hours, nearly roasted alive Gron-
stone boulders can get 30 hot in the sun
that il blisters your hand to touch them);
and he would have had to sit till sum
down, had not the timely appearance of
his friends relieved him Of the too-press-
ing attentions of the ''dickey-birds."
Another gentleman had q theory that
any creature, however savage, could be
subdued-" quelled," as he said-by the
human eye. One day he tried to quelI
one of his own ostriches, with the result
that he was presently found by T in
very pitiable predicament, lying fiat
on the ground, while the subject OF his
experiment jumped up and down on him,
occasionally varying the treatment by
sitting on him.
GREED AND RETRIBUTIoN.
Mrs. Martin tells funny story of how
retribution befell a tame and greedy
ostrich Being free of the kitchen
simply because no one could keep him
out-he was not long in observing that
the pumpkin and rice always came out
of one particular pot; and, the idea sud-
denly occurring to him that he could do
no better than 60 straight to the foun-
tain-head for his favorite dish he walked
mp, full of joyful anticipation, to the fire
where this pot was bubbling. The cook
who, being mother to several of the
ill-used children, did not love Jackie
offered no friendly interference to save
him from his fate; and plunging his bill
into the pot, he greedily scooped up and,
with the lightning-like rapidity of os-
triches, tossed down his throat large
mouthful of boiling rice. Poor fellow
the next moment he was dancing round
the kitchen, writhing with agony, shak-
ing his head nearly off, and twisting his
neck as if bent on tying it in a knot.
Finally he dashed wildly from the
house; the cook, avenged at last for all
the dinners he had devoured, called
after him as he stumbled out at the
door, "Serve you right, Jackie v'-and
away he fed across the veldt, till the
last that was seen OF him was little
cloud of white dust vanishing on the
horizon. He returned sadder and
a wiser bird; and it was long before he
again ventured inside the kitchen.
EATING A DIAMOND.
Ostriches, like blackbirds, are very
fond of anything that glitters. One of
them tried to snatch one of Mrs. Martins
earrings, and the ear with it. On an
other occasion he was more successful.
A newly-arrived gentleman was looking
over fence into camp, when the sharp
eye of an ostrich espied beautiful dia-
mond 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 the diamond being accurately calcu-
lated, that his judges might decide
whether he should live or die. Fortu-
nately for him, it was just the time when
ostriches we're expensive; and his value
was estimated at sl00, while the dia.
mond was only worth EGO. That ETC
saved his life: and the diamond was