HEAD IN THE SAND
Sir,-In the session /t’s In the Bag on July 24 a contestant answered "No" to the question "Does the ostrich bury its head in the sand?" and her answer was rejected. I was sorry for the lady, who may or may not have been just having a guess at it. But I’m even more sorry for the ostrich and the English language; because truth in this case has been prostituted to the convenience’ of idiom and seems likely to remain so. As a boy I lived on a farm in South Africa where we kept ostriches, and I never_saw or heard anything to support this strange idea which people who wrote books and things apparently believed. An ostrich feeding may stand for quite a time in one spot and peck at food on the ground without raising its head more than a few inches, or when sitting it may lay its neck and head on the ground -above the surface-and look like a bush or an anthill at a surprisingly short distance; and either of these cases may have given rise originally to the myth in question. But if you can find even one otherwise reliable authority to support the idea that an ostrich buries its head in the sand for any purpose at all I should be most interested to hear of
it:
DICK
SOUTHON
(Auckland)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540903.2.12.9
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 789, 3 September 1954, Page 5
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231HEAD IN THE SAND New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 789, 3 September 1954, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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