I need'nt tell you I'm an Ostrich, for my picture speaks for itself. I'm a native of South America, but members of my family have been caught and taken to the United States, so you have seen some of them, probably, in a "Zoo."

We are swift-footed and wary birds, but unfortunately have no presence of mind, so that when danger threatens us we become confused, run this way and that way, till the hunter comes up and with gun or "bolas" brings us to the ground.

If your legs and neck were as long as mine, and an Indian should fling around you a cord with a ball at each end and get your legs all tangled up, wouldn't you tumble to the ground, too? Of course you would. That is the way they catch us with a "bolas."

I think we ought to be called "ship of the desert" as well as the camel, for when the wind blows, we expand our great wings, and running against it, like a vessel under full sail, go skimming along, happy as a bird, in truth.

You can never see us do that unless you come to South America. In captivity we act differently, you know. Maybe you have seen us, when in an inclosure, holding our wings from our bodies and running up and down as though we were being chased, appearing greatly alarmed. Well, that is all fun. We have to do something to while the time away. Then, too, that is as near as we can come to "sailing" as we did when wild and free.

You have heard so much about the mother-bird sitting on the nest, that I am sure you will be interested in seeing a father who broods the eggs and hatches out the little ones. I have five wives. They all lay their eggs in one and the same nest, which is a hollow pit scraped out by their feet, the earth heaped up around to form a sort of wall. They lay the eggs, I have said, sometimes thirty in a nest, and I—well, I do the rest.

We are dangerous fellows if disturbed when brooding; have been known to attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. Our kick is no love-tap, let me tell you, but being so powerful we can easily kill a man.

When startled, or angry, we utter a kind of grunt as a warning; if it is not heeded, we then hiss sharply, draw back our head, and get ready to strike.