184 REMAEKS ON A RECENT PROPOSAL TO INTRODUCE OSTRICHES. 



in spite of a certain amount of risk attached to the industry, 

 it should be equally as attractive as sheep farming. The 

 danger of allowing the free removal of birds and eggs to 

 other countries was long ago recognised by the Government 

 of the Cape Colony, for, in 1883, they imposed an export duty 

 of £100 on every bird, and =£5 on each egg. Before this, 

 however, several shipments of ostriches had been forwarded 

 to India, California, the Eiver Plate district, and to the 

 Australian Colonies, and it has been made evident that 

 feather farming may be followed with some amount of 

 success in all these countries. In fact any land with a dry 

 and temperate climate, having level wastes, may be found 

 suitable for this industry. 



Tasmania, however, is less adapted for the purpose than any of 

 the neighbouring continental colonies, or than parts of New 

 Zealand. Wooded, hilly or uneven country is quite unfitted for 

 farming ostriches and grassy plains are found to furnish an 

 insufficient variety in diet. Climate has also to be taken into 

 consideration and even in the dry Wimmera district of Victoria 

 rheumatism and cold have proved very destructive amongst 

 the birds kept there. 



Further, the statistics of Australasia offer little encourage- 

 ment to introduce ostriches here. In South Australia, where 

 they have been kept for many years, the total number of birds 

 is, at the present time, only 725. In Victoria, where it is 

 nearly 20 years since Sir Samuel Wilson carried out experi- 

 ments at Longernong the increase is insignificant, and in 

 New South Wales and New Zealand there are only small 

 flocks. 



But more cogent reasons still for deprecating their 

 acclimatisation in Tasmania are to be found in the existing 

 state of the industry in South Africa, where full-grown birds 

 can now be purchased for from £3 to £4< each, or about the 

 value of their feathers at the current rates. Strayed birds, 

 barely worth the trouble and expense of recovery, become in 

 certain districts a cause of much annoyance and even danger 

 to persons travelling, so that it is considered unsafe to go 

 out except when armed with a gun, and the state of affairs 

 has been found sufficiently important to warrant the 

 appointment of a select committee of the House of 

 Assembly in the Capo Colony, who in their report 

 dated 4th July, 1889, recommended the repeal of the Acts 

 of 1870 and 1875, which imposed severe penalties for 

 interference with wild birds or their eggs, and advocated 

 perfect freedom for their destruction on private property 

 and liberty to anyone to shoot them on Crown Land on pay- 

 ment of =65 for a license. 



