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Dey eggs of ostrich!" I looked into the nest, and saw that the eggs were arranged with their ends uppermost, to occupy, I concluded, as small a space as possible. "But, Timbo," I said, "do you think they are fresh, for otherwise I fear they would be of little use?" "Oh yes," he said; "de hen-ostrich only just laid dem. See! see! dere she is, too, watching us!"
To complete the likeness, it has the same muscular neck, which rises high above the plain, and enables it to perceive the approach of an enemy, while its body is out of sight. We had already witnessed the care which a hen-ostrich takes of her nest, and Donald told us that one day he was riding along, when he came near a bird evidently sitting.
"You are aware that Kafirs are terrible thieves?" he replied. "Yes, I've been given to understand that they have propensities that way." "Oh! but you have no idea how clever they are at it, and the Totties are just as bad, if not worse. On one occasion we had a nest of eggs in the field over there, which we had left to be hatched in the natural way by the hen-ostrich.
The hen-ostrich sits upon her eggs with great care, and as soon as the young are hatched, provides them with nourishment; and as broken eggs are generally found outside the nest, it is supposed that she keeps a certain number unhatched, that she may feed the young birds on them. She generally hatches about a dozen eggs; but the Hottentots play her a trick to induce her to lay a larger number.
Late in the day Donald arrived with the hen-ostrich over his saddle, his back and head ornamented with the feathers, and half a dozen young birds hanging from the crupper. "Well, he does cut a curious figure!" exclaimed Leo, who saw Donald approaching. "If I had seen him for the first time, I should have taken him to be a fledged centaur a mixture of man, quadruped, and bird."
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