Читать книгу Neighbors with Wings and Fins and Some Others, for Young People - James Johonnot - Страница 11
ОглавлениеGIANTS OF DESERT AND PLAIN.
1. Unless we stop to think, there seems to be very little in common between the humming-bird and the ostrich. The one is about as big as the little finger; and the other is larger and taller than a man, and sometimes weighs three hundred pounds. The one has a leg no thicker than a tiny grass-stalk, and the other has the leg of a horse, one kick of which is enough to kill a man.
2. Yet, in some respects, this buzzing little atom and the immense giant are alike. They are both true birds. They are both warm-blooded, both have backbones, both have feathered wings, both have beaks for jaws, both have hollow bones, both have feathers, and both lay eggs from which they produce their young.
3. And yet the ostrich is a queer-looking creature. He has a long, skinny neck, reaching up into the air like that of a camel. He stands six to eight feet high, and can carry a man on his back. The natives of Africa, where the ostrich is at home, call him the "camel of the desert."
4. What strange feet he has, with but two toes, and one of these twice as long as the other! He has a droll appetite for stones; some of those he swallows are as large as hen's eggs. These stones find their way into his gizzard, and help to grind and digest his food, which consists mostly of reptiles, rats, and birds. When tame, he has been known to swallow nails, copper coins, keys, and the bolts and screws of an iron bridge.
The Ostrich.
5. One thing brings him into close relation to the humming-bird—his beautiful feathers. With the stubby wings he has, the ostrich can not fly. But, when he runs from his pursuers, these wings give him much friendly assistance. By their help his long legs are able to take steps of twelve or fourteen feet in length, and to carry him over the African plains with the speed of a railway-train.
6. The egg of the female is equal to twenty-five hen's eggs, and weighs from two to three pounds. She makes a nest in the sand about four feet in diameter. Here she lays, perhaps, fifteen eggs. Then her neighbors deposit their eggs in the same nest, and a certain number are laid aside for the young to eat when they are hatched.
7. The six weeks of hatching are passed in a way that shows much forethought and good sense. The work, for such this laborious sitting must be, is divided between the different females who have laid the eggs, each taking her turn. The male occasionally relieves them, and, during the hottest part of the day, the eggs are left to the sun alone.
8. The young of the ostrich are carefully tended by both parents until they are nearly grown. Dr. Livingstone met with broods of little ostriches led by a male, who pretended to be lame, that he might attract attention from his tender charge. In South Africa, farms, containing thousands of acres, are devoted to the rearing of the birds, for the profit arising from their feathers.
9. In South America—in Brazil, Chili, and Peru—there is a smaller variety of ostrich, called the rhea. It is but half the size of the African bird, and has three instead of two toes.
10. These birds run swiftly, are easily tamed, steal coins and nails to eat, and hate no one but their Indian enemies, who hunt them upon horse-back. The male does all the sitting upon and hatching of the eggs—his gentle companions retiring until he brings off the brood. The egg of the rhea is equal to fifteen hen's eggs, and, like the ostrich's egg, is cooked and eaten from the shell.
The Emu.
11. The emu of Australia, next to the ostrich, is the largest of birds. The male bird alone hatches and broods the young. The female is noisy, quarrelsome, and cruel to her offspring. As a household pet it is cunning, and often mischievous. A familiar poem gives a pleasant introduction to this bird:
THE BALLAD OF THE EMU.
12. Oh, say, have you seen at the willows so green,
So charmingly and rurally true,
A singular bird with a manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian emu?
Have you
Ever seen this Australian emu?
13. It trots all around with its head on the ground,
Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy:
"Oh, what a sweet, pretty emu!
Oh, do
Just look at that lovely emu!"
14. With large loaves of bread then they feed it, instead
Of the flesh of the white cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood
Where ranges the sweet kangaroo;
That too
Is game for the famous emu!
15. Old saws and gimlets best its appetite whets,
Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
There's nothing so hard that the bird will discard,
And nothing its taste will eschew,
That you
Can give that long-legged emu!
