THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 233 



is ready to adorn the hat of a lady of Belgrave or a "lidy" 

 of Whitechapel. There is no warrant in nature for girls 

 and women wearing feathers at all, but it is particularly 

 unnatural when hats are adorned with ostrich feathers of a 

 green, red, or other colour not worn by the bird. 



In South Africa the feathers are cut off the birds; at 

 the Egyptian farms they are plucked. I was told that the 

 latter operation did not hurt ; but any of my readers who 

 have been plucked in an examination will doubt the state- 

 ment. Plucking cannot give an ostrich much pleasure 

 when it requires six men with ropes to hold him while it 

 is being done. The small feathers that fall off themselves 

 are collected, sewn together, and made into boas. A lady 

 once remarked to me that an ostrich looks foolish from 

 top to bottom, but in reality the bird is no fool. It is 

 generally believed that when pursued he hides his head in 

 the sand, and imagines that the danger has ceased because 

 it is no longer seen. Politicians and ecclesiastics often 

 shut their eyes in this way, but not so the ostrich. Those 

 who, like my friends at the ostrich farm, have to catch him 

 occasionally for plucking or other purposes know that he 

 is by no means the foolish, cowardly bird the maker of 

 metaphors would have us believe. The ostrich cannot be 

 said to give more kicks than halfpennies, for his feathers 

 bring in much money, but he certainly can give a terrible 

 kick. One of the men at the farm was nearly killed by 

 one lately. 



What is the food that nourishes the ostrich and its lovely 

 feathers at the Cairo farm? It is given from 2lb. to 81b. 

 of beans and bran daily, besides an allowance of clover. 

 The years of an ostrich's life are about as many as those 

 of a man forty, sixty, eighty, or a hundred, according to 

 the constitution of the bird and the sort of life it lives. 

 From the earliest times as we learn from the paintings and 

 reliefs in Egyptian tombs and temples, ostrich feathers 

 were worn by Royalty, and symbolised truth and justice. 

 How and why they were thought to represent these quali- 

 ties I have not been able to find out, but I am sure that it 



