2^0 SOME RESULTS OF OSTRICH INVESTIGATIONS. 



irreofular manner. To forestall this, all the quills are drawn by 

 hand when mature, the chicks being then about eight month.s 

 old; and invariably the withdrawal of a quill acts as a stimulus 

 to the germ of the new feather at the bottom of the socket or 

 follicle. All the old quills being drawn simultaneously, the new 

 feathers begin their growth together, and a second full and even 

 crop is secured. This also requires six months for growth from 

 the time of drawing the quills, so that the second feather crop 

 is ready for clipping by the time the bird is 14 months old. Two 

 months later the second quills can be drawn, and the third feather 

 crop starts, to be completed by the time the bird is two years old. 

 The third clipping usually represents plumage maturity, that is, 

 it is the best crop the bird will ])roduce. With care and good 

 management, however, little dei)reciation follows for a number 

 of years. 



The ostrich plume owes its success as an article of adorn- 

 ment to its intrinsic grace and beauty, and, in these later times, 

 when humane principles are in the ascendancy, to the fact that 

 no cruelty whatever is involved in its production. The clipping 

 of the mature plumes involves no more to the bird than cutting 

 the hair, or trimming the nails, or shearing the wool of sheep. 

 Feathers, hairs, nails, and wool are all epidermal structures, 

 devoid of nerves and blood-vessels, and no pain is connected with 

 their removal once the growth is complete. (Fig i.) The 

 drawing of the ripened quills is only performing for the bird, in 

 advance and simultaneously, what would take place more slowly 

 and irregularly in the natural process of moulting. It is this 

 knowledge which in all recent legislative enactments devoted to 

 the prohibition of trade in plumage has led to the exemption of 

 ostrich plumage from any repressive regulations. 



The wild ostrich breeds when four or five years old, but the 

 domesticated bird from two to three years of age. or even before 

 two years, a remarkable instance of the influence of high feeding 

 in hastening the physiological processes of reproduction, com- 

 bined with a certain amount of unconscious selection on the part 

 of the farmer. The six-weeks' period of incubation is undertaken 

 in the nest by the cock at night and the hen by day, or is carried 

 out artificialh' in the incubator. 



In a dry climate, and free from parasitic attacks, the chicks 

 are hardy, an.d their rearing presents no difficulty. But with each 

 succeeding generation the primitive wild nature of the bird tends 

 to assert itself, and needs to be overcome, the tameness acquired 

 by the parents being in no measure transmitted to the offspring. 

 Left for a few weeks to themselves, or even with the parents, 

 the natural wildness would become established, and later control 

 would be practically impossible. To overcome this instinctive 

 tendency to wildness, chicks for their first year or so have to be 

 reared in close and constant association with people on the farm, 

 when their nervous fear remains in abeyance. Familiarity 

 breeding contempt, the natural fear of man in the ostrich turns 



