Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-05-14
HuMoRs OF THE OSTRICH.
Some of the Striking Peculiarities of sh'
BrainIess Creature.

Some of the Striking Peculfarities OF sho
BrainIess Creature.
The ostrich is not bird that can be
| easily brought up in The way that IL
should go. It has no powers OF aus
elimination because God hath de-
| prived her of wisdom, neither hath lie
impaired to her understanding as
runs the description of the ostrich IN
the Book of Job. It can not discrlml-
nate between wire fence and the open
camp, between friends and foes. or be-
tween what is helpful and what is hurt
full to its digestion It was owing to its
want of understanding in this last re-
spect, and to an equal want of discrlml-
nation on the part of the British public,
that it has been found impossible to
keep ostriches alive in the geological
gardens in London. public accus-
toned to slip in pennies into automatic
machines could not refrain from the
temptation offered by the omnivorous
throat of an ostrich, and filled them up
with poisonous copper, as if they were
so many missionary boxes. In its Afrl-
can life. however, the chief danger that
besets it is not the recklessness OF its
appetite, but it's reckless disregard
of it's own limbs. It will take fright
at shadow and hurl itself blindly into
the nearest fence, from which it will be
extricated with a broken leg: or fight
savagely with brother-ostrich, and
break it's leg: or fall into hole or gully,
and break its leg; or dance. Waiting
with swift and graceful precision, af-
fording most beautiful sight to the
spectator and the greatest satisfaction
to itself, until giddiness comes upon it
and brings it to the ground-again with
a broken leg. It is true that it's dam
gerously powerful legs are also very
brittle, but it must be confessed that it
does not use them we'll
Of the danger that the owner some
times runs from those powerful limbs,
Mrs. Martin tells some very amusing
stories. A sturdy newcomer, some six
feet in height, laughed at the warnings
that were given him when he set out
for walk, and disdainfully refused
the protection of a tackey-a thorny
branch, the dexterous use of which Will
keep the ostrich at bay-averring that
he twas not afraid of dicly-bird!'
He was missed, and discovered some
hours afterward by a search party most
uncomfortably perched on the top of
an ironstone bowlder, and slowly grill
ing under the African sun, while the
"dicky-bird'' did sentry up and down.
watching him with an evil eye. An
other gentleman had theory that any
creature, however savage, could be
subdued-'quelled,' as he said-by the
human eye. One day he tried to quel
one of his own ostriches, with the re-
Sult that he WAS presently found in al
very pitiable predicapent, lying fiat on
the ground, while the subject of
his experiment jumped up and
down on him, occasionally vary
ing the treatment by sitting upon
him. Doubtless it was safer to lie
down than to stand up to be kicked;
but to be sat upon as if one were an egg
must have beeh indeed humiliating.
Curious, too, is the account that the au-
thor gives of the camps or little king
doms that the ostriches mark out for
themselves with invisible, but never-to-
Observation-Disclosures boundaries. In
side that camp it will bear no intrusion.
but outside it, in the domain of it's
neighbor, it is profoundly indifferent to-
the strangers wanderings. Nor is it
safe for the farmer to presume upon his
former acquaintance with any bird, for
the ostrich has not wits enough to dis
tinguish an old friend from a new in
truder, nor sufficient respect for his
owner to except him from his sus-
picious hostilities, though it would ap-
pear that, as a rule, he will manifest a
stronger aversion to the Kaffir or Hot
tentot than to white man.-London.
ptrtn