Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/803

Rh There are not many young animals, says Mrs. Martin, "prettier than a young ostrich chick during the first few weeks of life. It has such a sweet, innocent baby-face, such large eyes, and such a plump, round little body. All its movements are comical, and there is an air of conceit and independence about the tiny creature which is most amusing. Instead of feathers, it has a little rough coat which seems all made up of narrow strips of material of as many different shades of brown and gray as there are in a tailor's pattern-book, mixed with shreds of black; while the head and neck are apparently covered with the softest plush, striped and colored just like a tiger's skin on a small scale." As they grow they lose all their prettiness and roundness, their bodies become angular and ill-proportioned, and a crop of coarse wing-feathers sprouts from the stripes.

The "chicken feathers" are plucked for the first time when the bird is nine months old. They are stiff and narrow > with pointed tips, and do not look as if they could be used for anything but making feather brooms. The quality is improved in the second year; but it is not till their wearer is plucked for the third time that the feathers have attained their full width and softness. During the first two years, when their plumage is all of a dingy drab mixed with black, the sexes can not be distinguished. Then they begin to differentiate; and at five years, when the birds have attained maturity, the plumage of the male is of a beautiful glossy black and that of the female of a soft gray, while both nave white wings and tails. In each wing there are twenty-four long white feathers, which, when the wing is spread out, hang gracefully round the bird like a deep fringe The thighs are bare and the flat head is bald, except for a few stiff bristles and scanty tufts of down. During the breeding season the bill of the male bird and the large scales on the fore part of his legs assume a beautiful deep rose-color, looking as if they were made of fine pink coral; and in some cases the skin of the head and neck becomes red too. The North African or Bethany ostriches have bright red