Show MALE OSTRICH BUILDS NEST sets on eggs at night during the incubation cu which lasts forty to fifty days aa after 1 er pairing the ostrich begins to make chak ills his nest it Is the male alone that at performs tills duty to do lt it he be squats upon the ground and balancing himself upon his breastbone scratches up the earth with nith his legs and throws it behind him when he has dug out enough on ono one side to suit him he turns round and begins to dig on another side find and continues this operation until he has made a hole large enough for him to sit in comfortably A few days after the nest Is finished the female begins to lay one egg every alternate day for eighteen or twenty lays days she then rests for a while which time varies from four to ten days and then lays more A pair of ostriches yield abaft forty eggs though it Is not unusual tor for a well fed well kept pair to yield fifty to sixt sixty y eggs the eggs are placed so 90 as to leave no space between them the male and the female brood alternately at night the male la Is always on tho the nest as it coq possesses ses greater warmth than the female these birds perform their duties with the greatest skill without any noise or breakage of the eggs the incubation lasts forty five days on an average sometimes fifty days but never continues beyond that when the chic klings hatch out they can be heard trying to break the of the egg sometimes they succeed huc ceeil in doing so sz but usually the father breaks the egg under the breast lione te tears ars the inside skin with his bill and frees the upon first reaching the air the remains limp and weak but the lie warmth of the parent soon revives it and a few hours afterward it begins to run about exercising its long legs toppling over at each step and recommencing again its stumbling journey four days after their biatch hatching the chic klings begin to eat cat they run after insects and swallow small P pebbles the father and mother do not help their little ones to find food |