ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 

 BULLETIN 



Published by the New York Zoological Society 



Vol. XXII 



MAY, 1919 



No. 3 



A CORNER IN OSTRICHES 



Hi/ Lee S. Craxdall, 

 Curator of Birth. 



SUPPOSE that you were an inhabitant of a 

 small town in the coal fields of northern 

 Pennsylvania, and that you had worked 

 hard and long to save a little money, but found 

 that wealth and ease were still far off. If, with 

 these facts firmly established, you were given 

 an opportunity to become a stock-holder in an 

 enterprise of the bonanza order, which could 

 not fail to bring large returns and presently 

 make you very rich, would you invest? Un- 

 less you were vastly different from the other 

 citizens of Bloomsburg, you would. You, with 

 several hundreds of your friends and neighbors, 

 would have bought largely of the securities of 

 the African Ostrich Farm and Feather Com- 

 pany, capital stock -$1,000,000. In common 

 with your fellow investors, you would still be 

 wondering whether perverse fortune, lax busi- 

 ness methods or pure chicanery had deprived 

 you of the handsome income which should have 

 been forthcoming. 



About ten years ago there arrived in Blooms- 

 burg a tall and dignified gentleman possessed 

 of compelling magnetism, a voice of velvet, and 

 an idea. This idea was much too good to keep, 

 and soon it was disclosed that the particular 

 location and climate of Bloomsburg were emi- 

 nently suited to the production of young ostrich- 

 es, and of ostrich plumes of the finest quality. 

 It appeared, quite reasonably, that ostriches, on 

 being exposed to the arctic temperatures which 

 are the salient features of the winters of that 

 locality, would promptly give forth feathers of 

 unusual size and quality, as nature's shield 

 against the elements. If nature grows her best 

 fur in the far north, why should not the same 

 laws operate on ostrich plumage? Also, as 

 fullv explained in the carefully worded and well 



printed prospectus which presently appeared, 

 these feathers would be double the number pro- 

 duced by the coddled birds of softer climes ! 



Plainly enough, the ordinary product of Cali- 

 fornia, Arizona and even South Africa, could 

 not compete in the open market with the super- 

 plumes that could be grown in sub-arctic Blooms- 

 burg. 



Bloomsburg was proud of the fact that, of 

 all the towns of the coal belt, it alone had been 

 chosen for this honor. It never had thought 

 that the severe cold which it had endured and 

 the heavy snows through which it had plodded 

 for many winters, could hold such golden possi- 

 bilities. It saw itself the seat of a great, new 

 industry, envied of its sister towns, and the 

 Mecca of the feather buyers of the world. 



Thus it was that when the formation of a 

 company to exploit the great idea was suggest- 

 ed, there was no lack of investors. The enter- 

 prise was duly launched, and stock to the value 

 of $350,000 was eagerly purchased by the privi- 

 leged inhabitants of town and countryside. 



Espey, a hamlet about two miles distant from 

 Bloomsburg. was selected as the ideal site. Here, 

 two rich and fertile farms, of respectively nine- 

 teen and forty-six acres, were secured. These 

 farms, bordering on the Susquehanna, and in- 

 cluding level pastures and rolling hills, were 

 the finest in the vicinity, lending themselves 

 well to the skill of the photographer. For this 

 was no mean undertaking and as such, must 

 have wide publicity. And what better vehicle 

 could be conceived than well reproduced pic- 

 tures of blooming fields and gentle slopes, made 

 to give forth a product the like of which had 

 not been seen before? 



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