OSTRICH INCUBATION.
[To TR6 EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR,")
&a,—My attention has been called to a review in the Spectator -in which it is stated or inferred that among ostriches the female bird does not sit upon the eggs in hatching. As a good many errors with regard to the habits of this bird prevail among naturalists, will you permit me to set right the false impression which your reviewer seems to have gathered from them ? The female bird regularly takes part in hatching, where birds are reared naturally instead of by artificial incubation, or where -they propagate in their wild state; and this statement applies to the North-African as well as the South-African ostrich. The statement can be verified by any visitor to an ostrich camp where breeding is carried on by natural means. In an article in the January number of the Century magazine, I mention this among other facts concerning the habits of ostriches ; and other recent writers corroborate me, among these being Mr. Arthur Douglass, an experienced ostrich-farmer, who, in his book on . • ' Ostrich-farming in South Africa" (Cassell, Petter, Galpin, and Co.)," pages 106 and 107, says," Whilst some pairs will bring out nearly every egg, nest after nest, others, again, never bring out
more than a small per-centage. This is generally caused by one of the parents beginning to sit before the other ' The less the birds are visited or noticed [during incubation] the better, as also in the frequent cases where the cock will not sit
at all," &c. On the page opposite this is an engraving of a hen -bird sitting, the engraving being from a photograph taken at
• Heatherton Towers, near Grahamstown.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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