The ostrich (_Struthio molybdophanes_) of East and Central Africa is distinguished from the South African bird by its greater size, and by the cock bird having a blue neck. The feathers at any time are inferior and of little or no market value. The only two birds that I have ever seen with feathers that were at all good were killed by Mr. H. C. V. Hunter at Kilimanjaro in 1887, when he had the good fortune to bag them shortly after they had moulted, and before they had rubbed and damaged their wing-feathers when dusting themselves. The ostrich is plentiful in many parts of the country, and goes about in small troops, generally three or four together, though I have twice seen a troop of thirteen, once in the Arusha-wa-Chini country, and once at Machako’s. An adult cock ostrich, when standing upright, would measure quite 10 ft. to the crown of his head, the hen being rather smaller. How far this bird ranges to the south I am unable to say, but to the north I have seen it near Lake Baringo. The Swahili and Arab traders, who now go up to Lake Rudolph, occasionally bring down small bunches of feathers, which, however, are probably of another species. Throughout the Masai country and east of it to the coast ostriches are to be found in most of the plains and open bush country, where they find plenty of green herbage to feed on, whether grass or the leaves of various bushes. At Merereni, on the coast, in 1886, where I bagged three, two cocks and a hen, the hen bird was feeding on the young shoots of a small-leaved mangrove bush by the side of a creek. Each of these birds when cut open was found to have about 3 lbs. weight of pebbles inside its gizzard.