The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-06
ON AN OSTRICH FARM.

l The ostrich is monogamist. At least, he has but one wife at a time, | The making is arranged by the human keeper, who puts each pair of birds in a separate corral MT Os-
 trich is likely to consider the question
 of marriage for some days after ht is in troduced to his partner, and much thought on the question colors his shins and and beak a bright red. When he
 finally determines that family should
 be reared, he digs a nest in the ground
 He then drives his mate up to the nest
 and calls her attention to it by giving
 her a kick. If she Is dull of compre- hension, and she usually is, he continues
 to kick her and scold her and his voice
 much resembles the roar of the lion.
 He is often compelled to go to the ex-
 treme of kicking her over the eight foot fence forming the corral.
 She finally, however, sees her duty
 and begins to lay eggs which average thrte pounds in weight. The first two
 or three eggs are not fertile and will
 not hatch. This fact, curiously enough,
 is known to the mother, and she lays them outside the nest. But in this
 there is a wonderful provision of na- ture. On the African desert the nesting
 of the wild birds is done in the hills or mountains, far from water and the haunts of beasts or men. But while
 the nest may be many miles from wa
 ter, the first requirement. of the chick when he comes from the shell is water or it's equivalent in liquid food. Hence the necessity of the two or thret sterile eggs, which the mother breaks after her brood is born, and on which the chicks live until they are strong enough to travel
 Left to her own judgment the hen lays perhaps ten eggs, at the rate of one in two days, and when the nest looks comfortably full the incubation begins But the artifice of man de- ceives her. The keeper systematically takes the eggs from the nest, and as long as her work seems to be unfin- ished the hen continues to produce eggs By this system two hens on the Phoe- nix farm last year produced fifty eggs each She cannot be deceived, however, as to the sterile eggs. If they are put in the nest she will continue to pull them out, and will finally quit laying and abandon the nest.
 About fifteen eggs constitute a 'set- ting,'' and the period of incubation is forty-two days The male bird does the greater share of this labor He takes charge of the nest at five o'clock in the evening and remains with it un- til nine o'clock in the morning, when the female takes charge. At noon he relieves her for an hour, while she luncnes and she then keeps house until five clock.
 One of the most interesting character istics of the ostrich is the manner in which he takes what may be called his "constitutionalp Every morning at sunrise the herd of young males en- gages in a foot race, which concludes in a combination cake-walk and reel in single file they will race around the pasture at a two-minute gait until linbsred up, and then sud denly forming in a group go through gyrations that suggest the waltz, the Virginia reel, the cake-walk and the ''happv jag" It is a grotesoue per formance, but there is a singular grace in the birds play, and when they are in full plumage. with their great wings spread, the sight is beautiful.-Arizona Graphic,