390 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
1879, p. 496), and of which some few hundred copies, as 
we have reason to believe, were despatched for circulation in 
South Africa. It is not unreasonable to suppose that a book 
with such a title would attract the notice of those who, like 
Mr. Douglass, are financially interested in the success of Ostrich 
farming. Yet, if we are to credit the statement made in the 
preface of the volume before us, Mr. Douglass seems never to 
have heard of it. Numerous letters, he tells us, have been 
addressed to him from all parts of the world asking if any such 
book were to be had, and the only inference which the reader of 
his preface can draw is, that the author was unable to name any 
such work. On the contrary, the latter claims for his own 
recently published volume that it is ‘the first work of its kind 
ever published.” Now, so far from this being the case, it is not 
the second, nor even the third, of its kind; and it is therefore 
not a little surprising that a preface, dated London, June, 1881, 
should contain so pretentious, and, at the same time, so in- 
accurate a statement. It is true that the second of the three books 
to which we have referred (that by M. Oudot, published in Paris, 
1880), although professing to be original, is a barefaced appropria- 
tion of the greater portion of Messrs. Mosenthal and Harting’s 
work, disguised in a French dress, with the addition here and there 
of what is technically termed “‘ padding,” the translator and appro- 
priator having had the effrontery to announce, on his title-page, 
that the right of translation and reproduction was reserved! A 
bolder stroke of plagiarism than this we never heard of. But we 
are not now reviewing this production of M. Oudot, and only 
refer to it for the purpose of showing that it was published long 
before Mr. Douglass wrote his preface. So also was an excellent 
essay by Mr. J. 8. Cooke, which appeared last year, and which 
contains much practical information on the subject of Ostrich 
farming, personally collected by the author in Cape Colony. 
As a writer on this subject, therefore, it is clear that 
Mr. Douglass has come somewhat late into the field. Had he 
only made himself acquainted before writing with what previous 
authors had written on the subject, he would not only have saved 
himself a considerable amount of trouble, but would have avoided 
some of the errors into which he has fallen on the subject of the 
rise and progress of Ostrich farming and the so-called natural 
history of the bird. 
