cakes, one of these large eggs being equal to a great many ordinary-sized ones, besides having a better flavour; in spite of which, I think it would require a good deal of courage to sit down to eat such an enormous egg.

Ostriches are decidedly not good - tempered, and when anything annoys them they show a fearlessness quite wonderful. A little story about this was told us by a friend, who when on one of his trexing excursions met with a lot of these birds.

He and some companions were on a shooting expedition, taking an ox waggon, as is the custom in those parts, to carry everything they wanted, and to sleep in at night. They had been away some weeks, with plenty of good sport, and were passing through a very wild part of the country, in search of a particular kind of game they wished to hunt, when they saw before them a number of tall creatures, which they at first mistook for the animals they were looking for; but as they came up closer to them they proved to be ostriches, and very formidable they looked, for there was quite a large flock of them.

Of course the travellers expected, when the birds saw them, they would make off as fast as possible. But no such thing. The ostriches had

evidently never seen such a thing as an ox waggon in their lives before, and seemed quite to have made up their minds to inspect it, for they stood stock still, no doubt thinking that it was some new kind of animal, until the waggon came near; then, instead of running away, they got into a dreadful rage, drew themselves up like a company of soldiers, and charged at the waggon full tilt, rushed between the oxen, who stood aghast at such an unexpected onset, broke the dessel-boom (part of the harness), and did other mischief with their great strong legs; and then, having fully satisfied their curiosity, sped away

into the distance.

The lookers-on quite expected that they would return to the charge, and began to prepare for capturing them, if possible; but the birds, having wreaked their vengeance on what they considered an enemy who had dared to invade their territories, appeared to be quite content and were

seen no more.

The crane is a snake-eating bird, and some people tame it for the sake of its usefulness in keeping down these troublesome and dangerous creatures, from which scarcely any garden in

Africa is quite free. Not that cranes live entirely on snakes; they eat all kinds of small reptiles, frogs, lizards, and such like, and insects besides ; but I think they prefer a good fat snake for their dinner to anything else, and no sooner do they spy one out than they peck him to death, and gobble him up, always taking very good care never to get bitten themselves.

An African or Kaffir crane, as it is called, is a very odd-looking as well as formidable-looking bird. It is grey and white in colour, with a jet black head, from which a long tuft of feathers sticks straight out in the funniest way, and has very much the look of a pen stuck behind the ear. It has long thin legs, and short peculiar wings, which always put one in mind of the tails of a gentleman's evening coat.