Only in one case was I at all satisfied of being able to count the rate of speed by a stop-watch, and, if I am not mistaken, there were thirty in ten seconds; generally one's eye can no more follow the legs than it can the spokes of a carriage-wheel in rapid motion.

If we take the above number, and twelve feet stride as the average pace, we have a speed of twenty-six miles an hour.

It can not be very much above that, and is therefore slower than a railway locomotive.

They are sometimes shot by the horseman making a cross cut to their undeviating course, but few Englishmen ever succeed in killing them.
The ostrich begins to lay her eggs before she has fixed on a spot for a nest, which is only a hollow a few inches deep in the sand, and about a yard in diameter.

Solitary eggs, named by the Bechuanas "lesetla", are thus found lying forsaken all over the country, and become a prey to the jackal.