The Domesticated Odrich in South Africa. 15 



principles of breeding in which these problems are included, 

 leaving it for the farmer to make such application of them as 

 he sees fit. Three methods of breeding are known, all of 

 which need to be considered : (1) Selective breeding ; 

 (2) Cross breeding ; and (3) Hybridization ; and a fourth 

 means of improvement is also recognised, namely, Mutation. 



Competition icith other Countries. 



Connections have been established with Ostrich breeders 

 in practically all parts of the world, including Northern 

 Africa, Southern Europe, California, Arizona, Florida, Cuba, 

 South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In all ihese 

 places efforts, with varying success, are being made to build 

 up an Ostrich industry, and in time the feathers might be- 

 come serious competitors with those in Cape Colony. It is 

 very desirable, if South Africa is to maintain its present 

 supremacy in the Ostrich-feather trade, that we should know 

 exactly what is being done in other countries. The Act 

 recently passed prohibiting the exportation of Ostriches and 

 Ostrich eggs was mainly designed to prevent the best birds 

 from leaving the Colony, and the success of the policy which 

 the Act represents depends upon the ability of South Africa 

 to continue to produce better feathers than can be grown 

 elsewhere. It must be allowed that, in the quality of its 

 feathers, South Africa is at present many years ahead of 

 other countries, but though the bird is indigenous to Africa, 

 it does not follow that it may not succeed as well elsewhere. 



The feathers obtained from New Zealand are greatly 

 inferior to those produced in Cape Colony. Samples from 

 America show considerable advance upon those from New 

 Zealand, but compared with those of the Cape are lacking in 

 size, strength of flue, and density. Both lots show evidence 

 of having been grown under highly artificial conditions, and 

 it may reasonably be doubted whether in the absence of proper 

 veld, with its variety of bush and shrubs, other countries 

 will ever produce such superior feathers as those grown in 

 South Africa. Nevertheless, the thousands of birds now 

 farmed in America, where the climate seems very favourable 



