e to its body. The white plumes
of the male bring the greatest price, and sometimes sell for 12 pounds
the pound, Troy weight, of only twelve ounces. The black feathers
seldom fetch more than a fourth of the price.

Two species of ostrich are found on the great plains of South America,
and one other in Australia. None of these attain the gigantic
proportions of the African, nor are their plumes at all comparable in
beauty or value to those of the _Struthio Camelus_.

Ostriches were once a favourite article of food with the Romans; and it
is stated that the brains of six hundred of these birds were consumed at
one feast. The flesh is still eaten, but only by the native Africans.
The bird possesses great strength, and can run at a rapid rate with a
man mounted on its back.

It was undoubtedly designed by its Creator for some other purpose than
that of contributing to the gratification of man's vanity.

Ostriches are easily domesticated. This is done to some extent by the
Arabians, who breed and bring them up for the sake of the feathers, as
also to procure them as an article of food.

But the more enlightened people of the present day make no other effort
to ascertain their utility, than to keep a pair or two of them shut up
in a public garden for children and their nurses to gaze at.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

ANOTHER DELAY.

Next morning, the hunters were early in the saddle, and off for the
karroo. For some distance, they rode along the bank of the stream which
was fringed by a growth of willow-trees. This course was taken to get
to windward of the ostriches, in the hope of having a shot at them as
they ran up the wind. Had their object been to stalk any other species
of animal, they would have advanced upon it from the leeward.

Before they had gone a great way over the karroo, five huge bipeds were
seen about a mile away. They were ostriches. They were apparently
coming towards them with great speed, and the four hunters extended
their line to cut off an advance which the stupid bird mistakes for a
retreat. They were moving in long rapid strides; and, as they drew
nearer, the hunters saw that, to obtain a good shot, they must gallop
farther to the north. The birds were going in a curved line that would
carry them away from the place where the hunters expected to have met
them. To get within sure range, these saw that they would have a sharp
ride for it, and their horses were instantly put to thei