THE RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO MAN 



377 



hunting and transportation of game birds is now regulated by 

 law in most localities. 



The use of birds' skins and feathers as ornaments has been for 

 many years a source of income for many hunters, middlemen, 

 and milliners. Laws and public sentiment are slowly overcom- 

 ing the barbarous custom of killing birds for their plumes, 

 and it is hoped that the women of the country will soon cease 

 to demand hats trimmed with the remains of birds. 



Ostriches are now commonly reared for their feathers, and there 

 is no more objection to the use of their plumes for ornament 

 than there is to the use of hens' 

 eggs for food. Ostrich feathers 

 are now procured almost entirely 

 from domesticated birds (Fig. 

 257). In 1904 there were in 

 South Africa over three hundred 

 and fifty thousand tame os- 

 triches which yielded an annual 

 income of about $18 each. 

 Ostrich farming is now success- 

 fully carried on in California, 

 Arizona, Arkansas, North Caro- 

 lina, and Florida. The feathers 

 are clipped without pain to the 

 birds; those from a single adult 

 weigh about one pound. Os- 

 triches in the natural state live 

 in desert regions and travel 

 about in groups, usually of from 

 four to twenty. They are very 

 suspicious and flee from any signs of danger. Their speed is 

 remarkable, reaching sixty miles an hour, and their single stride 

 may measure more than twenty-five feet. 



The Value of Birds as Destroyers of Injurious Animals. 

 Within the past two decades detailed investigations have been 



FIG. 257. Ostrich. (From Evans.) 



