Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-10-07
paANks or THE OSTRICH.
The Tau. UngainIy Bird Does sOE'
Mighty Queer Things At Times.


The ostrich is not bird that can b.
easily brought up in the way that i
should 60 IL has no powers of dis
elimination. ''Because God hath de
prived her of wisdom. neither had h'
impaired TO her understanding'-ai
runs the description of the ostrich in
the book of Job 1t cannot discrim
mate between a wire fence and the
open camp. between friends and foes
or between what is helpful and what
is hurtful to the digestion. II was ow-
ing to its want of understanding in this
last respect, and to an equal want OF
discrimination on the part Of the Brit
ish public. that it has been found i'm
possible to keep ostriches alive In the
geological gardens In London.
A public accustomed to slip its pen
nies into automatic machines could not
refrain from the temptation offered by
the omniverous throat OF an ostrich
and filed them up with poisonous cop
per- as If they were so many missionary
boxes. In its African life. however,
the chief danger that besets it is not the
recklessness Of its appetite, but its reck
less disregard Of its own limbs. II will
take fright at a shadow and hurl itself
blindly into the nearest fence. from
which II will be extricated with
broken leg, or fight savagcly with
brother ostrich and break its leg, OF
dance, waltzing with swift and graceful
precision, affording a most beautiful
sight TO the spectator and the greatest
satisfaction to himself. until giddiness
comes upon 1t and brings ii to the
ground-again with a broken leg. 1t
is true that its dangerously powerful
legs are also very brittle. but 1t must be
confessed that 1t does not use them
we'll
OF the danger that the owner some
times runs from those powerful limbs,
writer tells some very amusing sto-
ries A sturdy newcomer some six
feet In height, laughed at the warnings
that we're given him when he set out
for walk and disdainfully refused the
protection of a tacky--a thorny branch.
the dexterous use Of which will keep
the ostrich at bay y-averring that he
was not afraid of a dicky bird" He
was missed and discovered some hours
afterward by search party most un
comfortably perched on the top of an
ironstone bowlder and slowly grilling
under the African sun, while the "dicky
bird" did sentry up and down, watch
ing him with an evil eye.
Another gentleman had a theory that
any creature, however savage, could be
subdued- ''quelled," as he said-by
the human eye. One day he tried to
quell one Of his own ostricles. with the
result that he was presently found in
very pitiable predicament, lying fiat on
the ground, while the subject of his
experiment jumped up and down on
him, occasionally varying the treat
ment by sitting upon him. Doubtless
II was safer to lie down than to stand
up to be kicked; but to be sat upon as
II one were an egg must have been In
deed humiliating.
Curious, too, Is the account that the
author gives of the camps or little
that the ostriches mark out
for themselves with invisible but never
to be encroached upon boundaries.
Inside that camp II will bear no in
trusion, but outside OF II, In the do
main Of its neighbor, it is profoundly in
different TO the strangers wanderings
Nor is It safe for the farmer TO pre-
sumo upon his former acquaintance
with any bird, for the ostrich has not
wits enough TO distinguish an old friend
from new intruder, nor sufficient re
spect for his owner TO except him from
bis suspicious hostilities. though It
would appear that. as a rule, he will
n stronger aversion TO the
Kafflr or Hottentot than to a white
man. Great Divide.