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Show .i THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE, SUNDAY" MORNING, JUNE 27, 1920, Science Finds They Mate for to If the eggs are taken away from her as she lays them and carried to an incubator sbe will keep on replenishing tbe nest up to the number stated. If not. she produces only the dozen or two better. a recent study of ostriches by the States Bureau of Agriculture, with the view of determining their value as food birds and the cost of and possibilities in cultivating them as 6uch, a number of very Interesting and surprising discoveries were made as to their from IN Ir , habits and customs. Some of the most striking of the things the average reader would never have believed about this curious survival of the giant wingless prehistoric birds have only recently been made known'' and are told here for the first time. Perhaps the most astonishing discovery was that the ostrich has a most rigid code of marital morality. The eternal triangle is pot permitted to exist in the ostrich civilization any longer than It takes the wronged mate to eradicate It with wing and leg. As the life of the ostrich is led entirely in the open, the triangle motif, once It appears, is equally entirely impossible of concealment. Ostriches, at least those in captivity, are strictly monogamous, it was found. When they mate it is with no reservations. They mate for good and all till death doth them part The male chooses his partner when about four years old, and from that time on will tolerate no Influence either from fasphilandering mated birds or would-bcinating bachelors. When such an invasion of the home occurs the two birds battle until one is killed, all the others looking on without .attempting to interfere and in solemn silence. Occasionally the female punishes unfaithfulness on the part of her mate by killing him. The male has also been known to mete out tbe same pun ishment to his feathered wife after be has made away with the interloper. The rules of such a combat seem to be fixed as definitely as a ring battle under tbe Marquis of Queensberry code; these rules are never departed from The fight - is said to be a most tbrilllDg spectacle. Tbe ostrich's main weapons of offense and defense are his powerful legs. With these he strikes forward, first with one and then j X 4. o with the other. His anatomy is such that be cannot kick backward w ith the slightest degree of force. When a male bird decides that his home brs been invaded, or that he must kill a rival, he issues a forma! challenge by sit4 ting down, spreading out his wings, drawing nis head back against bis body and Issuing a hoarse cry. After this he beats his head against his body with drum-like- , resounding thumps and waves his wlhgs In tho air. The othfr birds withdraw at a safe distance. Then the challenger leaps t ohis feet; from bis throat comes a hoarse, screaming hiss. And so hissing he pounces upon bis enemy. The battle cry is curiously hoarse and raucous, and the air is soon filled with tbe sound of the fray. The two ostriches advance, striking at each other. They direct their powerful blows at each other's chests, for there the vital organs are protected only by his tough hide. There is no covering musculature on the breast. The two toes on each foot, each with a nail as hard as Iron, rip the feathers and tear the skin, usually at 'the first blow. The birds strike again and again. Blood begins to dye the feathers red, then to run in tiny rivulets down their pink or gray legs. t They circle about, their hissing filling the air. Feathers fly. The weaker bird perhaps will stagger and go down for a moment The stronger kicks at his opiC head. If be misses, the wicked - ponent's toes tear long, bleeding gashes In the neck. I w Perhaps the home invader, or protector, as ei the case may be, is able to struggle to his feet and renew the fight. But soon the ; skin is torn there Is one more good kick and falls. he i a The victor, still kicking, batters to death his foe, then, bleeding and scarred, feathers torn from his body in many places, ,hlB legs bright with bs own blood and that of his rival, he stalks toward the feminine object of the fiaht. If It is tbe interloper who has won he takes the lady for whom he has battled In captivity the widow of an ostrich, or the widower, takes a new mate frequently if they can win or find one. In the wild etate observers say a different situation prevails. The bereaved bird lives thereafter by itself, mourning solitarily tbe dear departed. But this la not tbe only example of a well developed domestic sjstem. The parent birds take turn in batching the eggs. The male takes the night watch, the female the day a habit undoubtedly formed In the wild state when tbe darkness is more filled with peril. Regularly at four oclock another mystery, for the great birda carry no watches tbe male takes his place upon the eggs. The female relieves him at nine oclock next morning If she nnas ne has been careless, la away, that is. from the neat, she punishes him by beating him with her wings aad beak. Usually he takes this drubbing meekly. But if he for some reason should refue to get off the eggs when he comes around at four o'clock he kicks her off the nest. Why? No one knows. Odd as this apparent perception of time 1 the female's recognition of number. Normally she lays twelve to fourteen eggs. Nature has provided her with a reserve power which enables her if any of those eggs are broken or stolen to keep up.the number. She can lay, under necessity. -- aw-av- Home Breakers or Divorces Allowed, Mamma Ostrich Knows Just What Eggs Are Going to Hatch, Papa Ostrich Gets 'Beaten If He Shirks His' Turn at Hatching Them and Other Odd and Unusual twenty-six- twenty-fou- r . The observers al- ways found u certain number of eggs laid outside the "nest. They marked these and put them back. Tbe next day they were outside again. Tbe observers tested them and found them infertile! Aod this was invariably tbe case witb all the in rejected eggs, some utterly inexplicable fashion Mrs. Ostrich has been endowed nature by with tbe faculty of telling eggs that will batch from those 1 that won't Tbe ostrich is tbe biggest bird on earth and has the smallest brain. It weighs as much as an average cow, and that brain but two .weighs Yet it le ounces! not stupid Tbe ostrich lives to be about ninety v cai s old In tw Facts About the Biggest Bird With the Littlest Brain K7? enty-nin- e years one pair under observation produced 450 cbicks an equivalent of of 117,500 pounds meat! The laving season begins ordinarily In January The birds lay one egg every other day for twenty tU days. The nest Is merely a hole bcooped in the A Mother Ostrich Approaching Her Neat and Observing with , ground, usually Manifest Displeasure That Mr. Ostrich Has Left It Before He about a foot deep Ought To. When Her Mate Returns She Will Punish Him. and four- - feet in The ostrich h a f diameter. They weigh from three to four 1JM A played a prominento! and one-hapounds each and contain part in the history enough "material to supply eight persons the race His origit 'with one meal The shell is exceedingly has not been definite A thick and strong and generally about the and iy finally fixed, same appearance as a hens egg Some but Cleopatra vamped The brown. a are some are mottled, light Anthony with the aid eggs take about forty days to hatch. The of an ostrich fan, and chicks peck their way out, and see dayAristotle, Pliny and v if . light full fledged and standing from tea 4 mentioned i Xenophon inches to one foot tali. They are covered the bird in their w look with dark, stubby feathers, which Wt It also appears , fS $ f more like dark excelsior than most anyin various ancient iny? s ' thing else For the first two or three days f - tllistory scriptions. U the little ostrich is busy accumulating a indicates that the set of "teeth for himself That is, he eats ostr.ch at one time bits of gravel and pieces of shell. inhabitated partg of of on ni getthe business Then be starts India, North China, ting nourishment Tender bits of alfalfa, Syria, P t r s i a and green shoots of bambpo. choice tidbits of Fosother countries barley all go to make up his diet In a sils of two toed birds very short time he has no use for father have been found in or mother. He averages one foot per North China. In this month in growth In nine months he has respect the ostrich is his eight feet of growth and is ready for different from other his first "plucking birds He has but not are toe Ostrich plumes actually plucked, 1 lie by the way. They are cut pruned with egs of tbe no damage or pain to the bird. m oifruh .ire good oat Tbev are a trifle Neither does an ostrich "hide by slickt it! ir. r than is ing its head In tbe sand This is a superPi.- - but cxcecfbstition forever exploded and most defiH S fl Pi ' nitely. al o is occasiriutiy When the feathers are ripe the osentriches are driven into a tib n It t 'ste soi.ie-hat like closure. Their heads are covered w!h a al. hood like a stoekingT'whlch renders them Outside its probable tractable. Thelwings are spread by tbe food vsue upon 4 man doing the "plucking and the feathers whkh the Un i t e d . V I H ; 1. r ' j . , V,are clipped off fairly close to the flesh States Bureau of Agri-cu- l 4tP A t rv i This does not hurt the bird in the least ure does not yet and within sixty days the dead quill ends commit itself, the 6)H ostrich has a big comdrop out of their own accord. The tail are also feathers Exvalue. clipped. A Pair of Mated Ostriches Once Called Camel mercial estimate it is estimated tne average ostrich yields that perts about one pound of feathers at a plucking Birds Which Have Dwelt Together on the Los more than $40,000,000 is invested in ostrich Despite their size and strength they are Angeles Farm for Thirty Years. They Respond farms, nrlnctpaltv In very easily frightened and often die of heart failure from sudden shock. Any unto the Names of Mr. and Mrs. W'illiam J. Bryan. South Africa and the usual sound may start a panic among the United States. The ostrich eje Is as large as an birds Jt was in 1864 that the first ostrich farm marble He has mlcoscopic vision Faithful as they are to each other, they was established In South Africa, and a and can see the most minute particle. The are absolutely unreliable and treacherous recent unoffMal census comparatively no Inmove does ovet the where man la concerned. Some have been eyelid pla-eeye the number of birds in that country whi-film a stead there is to flasheg across trained ride One of the pictures shows in excess of l&OC'O. it from time to time, somewhat like the Miss Colleen Moore, a Los Angeles beauty, Importation of otiches into the United tshuHer a camera of on the back of one of her racing ostriches State was a matter filled with thrills and The ostrich sometime., roars like a lion. excitement, strategy and a battle of wits. at her farm near Los Angeles. Others This is true when he is fighting or especiIn 1S86 Edwin Cawston chartered a ship, which have been unusually intelligent have ally alarmed. He does this by taking in fitted it with specially made compartment been harnessed to small wagons or have s a great quantity of air His' neck and steamed to South Africa. Here tons been made performers, to a limited extent, until it looks like a small balloon. Then of food and gravel were taken aboard and in circuses. he forces this air out all at one time. This fifty ostriches purchased. The South AfAn ostrich being ridden recalls vividly rican Government, spurred oa by the owngives the roar. Charles Edward Carryls immortal lines, His fleetness of foot and his ability to ers of large farms which were paying fat Tba Plaint of th Camel: so much noise are the two factors make profits from the sale of feathers, passed "People would laugh if you rode a giraffe in escaping from or frightening his an emergency law placing as export duty Or mounted the back of an ox; enemies. of $500 on eacb bird and $25 on each egg Its nobodys habit to r Ido on a rabbit There are about five hundred grades of This went into effect at midnight of cer Or try to bestraddlo a fox. feahers With the prevent demand each tatn day. But ao for a Camel, hes bird is estimated to be worth from ?2.0)0 Cawston rushed his plans, smuggled the Ridden by families to $3,000. birds on board in the darkness, and by 12 ANY LOAD does for me. r lJOO, TntRrBAticnal Future PArrW, in. Grst Britain Bifbta 4 I lf ? 4 rit-in- ,1 to h- - 1 e "ku f . y, Mist Colleen Moore, of Los Angeles, Out for a Trot Upon Her Racing Ostrich. Part of the Curious Saddle Is Visible Over the Birds Breast; the Seat Is Fixed Upon the Back, the Riders Legs Stretching Between the Wings. ; - 1 - sw-f-l- oclock midnight was safely at sea The rdisb new nails, tacks, veils or anything birds proved poor sailor They died fi-- in that gPtteis. Not long ago at one ot the various causes, and finally, when the ship larms a b.rd swallowed a tied up at New Orleans, only half of the Another lunched on two padlockofand key. pounds shingle original number bad survived. These were nails Another down a womans loaded on freight cars, and finally eighteen vil s ill anothergulped snatched a sliver spoon of the birds reached South Pasadena, from tne hand of a baby la the arms of where Cawston established his farm its mother Other importations by large firms The birds In Southern California partlo now and there are ostrich farms at ularly enjoy oranges, which they swallow Atlanta, Ga ; Jacksonville, Fla. and some whole Half a dozen can be seen years ago a large flock was keot in Ari- down the long neck of one bird attraveling a time. zona for s considerable time. The CawsIf the oranges are too the bird drops ton flock numbers approximately 1,000 the fruit on the groundlarge until it is battered birds, that at Atlanta 300, gt Jacksonville into pieces small enough for it to swallow. about fifty , The normal diet of an ostrich is alfalfa The domesticated ostrich yields a much and barley. One bird will eat as much aa finer grade of feathers and larger quantity a cow thaa when in tbe wild state. They have been known to go for days Tb average ostrich is eight feet tall, without taking a drink of water. Then of which three feet is neck; weighs from one bird will empty an ordinary waahtub 275 to 325 pounds. Ills stride is twenty-tw-o tw ice. feet when running and speed estiApropos, it is interesting) note that mated at sixty miles an hour. His brain, these birds were called camel bird in the as has been said, weighs about two ounces early days of their history. Probably that is the reason that he will And that the champion oi the Cawston swallow'' anything bright. He seems to flock is named William Jennings Bryan, - S' |