The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1891-05-19
HUMORS OF THE OSTRICH.

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The ostrich is not bird that car
be brought up in the way that il
should 60. Ii has no powers of dis
elimination. Because God hath de.
prived her of wisdom neither hath He
impaired to her un!erstanding"-as
runs the description of the ostrich in
the book of Job. 1t cannot discrimi.
nate between a wire fence and the
oben court camp, between friends OF
foes, or between what is helpful and
what is hurtful to its digestion. Ii
was owing to its want of understand.
ing 10 this last respect and to is want
of discrimination on the part of the
British public that it has been found
impossible to keep ostriches alive in
the geological gardens in London.
A public accustomed to slip pennies
into automatic machines cOul, not re.
frain from the temptation offered by
the omnivorous throat of an ostrich
and fill it up with, poisonous copper
as if they were SO many missionary
boxes.
In Its African life, however, the
chef danger that besets it is not the
recklessness of its appetite, but Its
reckless disregard of lis own limbs.
1t will take fright at a shadow and
hurl itself blindly int the ne irest
fence, from which it will be exlricated
with broken leg; or fight savagely
with a brother ostrich and break It's
leg; or fall into hole or gully and
break its leg; or dance, waltzing
with most swift aud gracfnl precision,
afOrding a most beautiful sigdt to the
spectator and the greatest satisfaction
TO itself, until glddiness comes upon it
anu UIlHSs v---stsO SEO--I--S-.-
with broken leg. 1t is true that its
Vigorously powerful legs are also
worry brittle. but it must be confessed
that it does not use them well.
Of the danger that the owner
sometimes runs from those powerful
limbs one Mrs. Martin tells some
very amusing stories. A sturdy new
conner, about six feet in height,
laughed at the warnings that were
given him when he set OUT for a walk
and disdainftlly refused the pro-
lection ola lackey-a thorny branch,
the dexterous use of which will keep
the ostrich at bay-averring that he
"was not afraid of a dickey Bird"
He was missed and discovered some
honrs afterward by a search party
most uncomfortably perched on the
top of ironstone boulder and slowly
griiling under an African sun, while
the "dickey.bird" did sentry up and
down, watching him with an evil eye.
Another gentleman had a theory
that any creature, however savage,
could be subdued-"quelIed," as he
said, by the human eye, One day
he tried to quell enc of his own os-
triches, with the result that he was
presently found in a very pitiable
predicament, lying fat on the
ground, while the subject of his ex-
pertinent jumped up aud down on
him, occasionally varying the treat.
meRt bA sitting upon him. Doubt
less ii was safer to lie down than to
stand up to be kicked; but to be sat
upon as if one we're al egg must have
been indeed Illuminating.
Curious, too, is an account given
of the camps or little kingdoms that
the ostriches mark out for themselves.
with invisible but never to be en-
croached upon boundaries. Inside
that camp it will bear no intrusion.
but outside it, in the domain of It's
neignborhood, it is profoundly indif.
ferent 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 snf-
icient respect for his owner to except
lim from his suspicious hostilities,
though it would appear that, as a |
.ule, he will manifest a stronger
aversion to the Kafir or Hottentot
hon IN q uhita man