OCR Text |
Show BY PATH AND TRAIL. 217 each. There is another very singular thing about the wonderful knowledge, or instinct, of the ostrich. If an egg is removed from her nest while she is hatching, and a sterile egg, heated to the same temperature as eggs on which sHe is setting and of the same color and size sub stituted, she will at once detect the change and roll the egg out. If all the eggs in the nest be taken away and sterile eggs put in their places, the mother will abandon the nest and lay no more for months. If you ask me for an explanation of the origin of this marvelous and mys terious sense, I can only answer in the words of the in spired writer: " This is the Lord's doing, and it is won derful in our eyes." About fifteen eggs is the average " setting, " and the period of incubation forty- two days. The male bird takes upon himself the heavier labor of the contract. He takes charge of the nest and assumes control of the work at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and stays with his job ' til 9 o'clock in the morning, when the female relieves him. At noon he returns and keeps house for an hour while his partner goes for her lunch. The male bird turns the eggs once every twenty- four hours. Incubators have been lately introduced and are giving satisfaction. The chicks, when two weeks old, sell for $ 25 each, and when four years of age a pair, male and female, sell for from $ 400 to $ 600. The birds do not differ in appearance until they are eighteen months old, at that age they take on an alto gether different plumage; the male arraying himself in black and the female in drab. When six months old, the birds experience the sensation of their rfrst plucking, and after that they give up their plumes every eighi months. Not until the third plucking do the feathers |