Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1895-05-31
THE OSTRICH.


and fed, for the sake of their plumes,
in Africa, Australia and America,
but their feathers are not nearly so
valuable in the market as they used to
be, and the care the birds require, and
the great losses among them, render
them very uncertain property.
The legs of the ostrich are enormous,
but the bone is very fragile, and seems
sometimes as brittle as porcelain, so
that a comparatively slight blow is
enough to splinter it into just as jag
ged and pointed fragments as result
from the breaking Of china. AS the
birds are entirely unmanageable, they
then have to be killed.
One very common cause of broken
legs with ostriches is the curious habit
these birds have of Waiting round, es-
pecially when they are put in good
spirits by being turned out of the en-
closure in which they have been kept
at night.
Although ostriches sometimes lay
as many as 20 eggs, and the pair take
turns sitting upon them, good many
persons who raise the birds hatch a
good portion of the eggs in incubators,
which takes six weeks.
At five years the bird is full grown,
and the male is then glossy black
and the female gray, both having white
wings and tail. In each wing are Pa
white feathers which are the valuable
ones. The ostrich's body is very bony
and lean, the bare thighs being the
only fleshy part. On this the ostrich
farmers brand their marks, like cattle
raisers brand their animals.
The meat of the thigh is good, but
rather stringy and tough it makes ex-
cellent soup, for which it is used very
often by the farmers who are obliged
to kill one of their birds. One ostrich
egg is equal in quantity of contents to
about "a hens eggs, and it is quite as
delicate and useful for most household
purposes, but the birds themselves are
too valuable for many eggs to be used
for eating by their owners.
Ostriches swallow all sorts of hard
things, which gives rise to the saying,
''the digestion of an ostrich" but they
take them, just as a small bird takes
grains ofsand, to enable the gizzard to
grind up the food. In their crops are
found bones, broken china, and glass,
and pieces of iron, as we'll as stones.
They have been known, on ostrich
farms, to take the lighted pipe from a
mans mouth and swallow it, and
other things as curious and unlikely.
Their action in doing so is as quick as
lightning. They are attracted by any
thing that glitters, and often pick up
such things carelessly left about, par
ticularly jewelry.
A lady sometimes has her earring
snatched at while leaning over fence
looking at the ostriches, and story is
told of a gentlemen who was inspect
ing the birds in an inclosure, and who
Wore a diamond pin in his scarf A
bird spied the stone, his bill came like
a shot, and the diamond was swallow
ed. Then a consultation was held as
to the relative value of the stone and
the bird, which was a fine one. Itwas
lust at a time when ostriches were
very valuable, and as the bird was
valued at hundred pounds, and the
diamond was only worth sixty, the
bird was allowed to live. Now os-
triches are a good deal cheaper, and
the life of the robber would be sacri-
feed at once for his audacity in adding
such valuable stone to the collection
in his crop.
Ostriches have been in captivity so
short time that it is not known how
long they live. They are certainly
very long-lived and, strange to say,
the oldest of which there is any knowl-
edge yield as handsome feathers as
any.