THE PROFITS FROM OSTRICHES. 47 



here calculated as dead capital ; consequently the birds 

 were represented to pay, over and above expenses of 

 management and feeding, 185 per cent, per annum. 



Of course the thing is absurd ; did birds pay any- 

 thing like this, we should have had ere this every 

 shopkeeper selling off his stock, hiring strips of land, 

 and putting every penny he could get hold of into birds. 

 That some pairs of birds will have four nests in a season, 

 and bring out, say, twelve chicks in each nest, which 

 might be sold for £6 each at a day old, we all know. 

 And that this may be greatly increased by artificial 

 hatching we know, as see the almost fabulous returns I 

 made by this means, as given in the chapter on Arti- 

 ficial Hatching, where you will see that one set of birds 

 gave a gross return of £1,676 in one year. But that 

 this is any criterion of what a general stock can be 

 trusted to do, we deny. 



We know an estate where all the land has not been 

 stocked, and where everything is done with a liberal 

 hand, and in the most permanent style, which has 

 averaged for the last six years a net return of 30 per 

 cent, per annum on the total investment, including cost 

 of land and all improvements. As also one which, for 

 the four years 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875, averaged a 

 net return on the capital invested of 66 J per cent, per 

 annum ; but in this latter case the land was hired, 



