xiv PIGS, CATTLE, OSTRICHES 139 



best obtained, according to Mr. E. R. Montgomerie, 

 veterinary pathologist to the Protectorate, by segre- 

 gating all new purchases for at least six weeks before 

 allowing them the run of the usual grazing grounds. 



Ostriches. — As regards ostriches the Protectorate is 

 yet in its infancy, but there is every reason to hope that 

 it is the infancy of a very lusty child. The main 

 ground for this optimism lies in the fact that the wild 

 birds, which form the foundation on which the industry 

 is being built, are of altogether superior stamp to those 

 which were the original stock of South Africa. Pro- 

 fessor T. E. Duerdon, one of the most eminent 

 authorities on ostrich breeding, in the course of a 

 series of most interesting articles published in South 

 Africa, makes some noteworthy admissions. He states 

 therein that all the many years of selection and breed- 

 ing, and the expenditure of enormous sums of money, 

 have not tended to raise the individual desirable 

 qualities of individual feathers. Furthermore, that it 

 is impossible to do so. The professor states with 

 authority that the original wild stock of South Africa 

 possessed occasional feathers of equal length to any 

 now grown, occasional feathers of equal shape, others of 

 equal density, hardness, or gloss. All that the science 

 of breeding has been able to effect has been to combine 

 the various highest qualities into one feather, and 

 gradually to ensure the fixity of such feathers and 

 complete crops of the highest class. Thus a single 

 one of the finest plumes of the modern bird could not 

 be matched by a wild bird in the combined essentials 

 of size, shape, density, hardness, and gloss ; still less 

 could he be matched with regard to the complete crop. 

 In one point it is indeed admitted that the domesticated 

 ostrich has actually deteriorated, and that is in the 



