i6 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



it does, none would hinder the other. So the plan works 

 well enough. 



The slaughter of Ostriches in the North African deserts 

 by such persistent hunters as the Bedouins, the Somalis, 

 and the like, and the opening up to civilisation of their 

 old feeding-grounds in South Africa, suggested at last that 

 it would be a very wise plan and a very profitable one to 

 tame and rear Ostriches for the sake of their plumes. 



"Ostrich farming" did not seem quite so simple as 

 poultry farming. Such a bird seemed as unfit for domesti- 

 cating as the zebra. However, the experiment was tried 

 and tried successfully. This was in the year 1867.^ 

 More and more people took up the business, more and 

 more money was invested in it, until, in a little over 

 twenty years, eight millions sterling was being used in 

 Ostrich farming, of which the profits were £800,000 per 

 year. 



Those were the days of high prices indeed. As much 

 as £400 was given for a fine pair of birds, and a pound of 

 feathers (about eighty or ninety good-sized feathers go to 

 a jDound) fetched as much as £100, £25 being often given 

 for a single set of plumes. Then prices gradually fell, till 

 a set of plumes {i.e. the feathers of one bird) fetched only 

 some thirty shillings, and £20 or £25 would purchase the 

 bird itself Nevertheless, the industry has so increased 

 that the feathers sent out by Cape Colony alone recently 

 exceeded in value a million sterling.^ 



^Between the years 1850-1860 a flock of domesticated Ostriches seems to 

 have been kept by a Mr. Kinnear, of Beaufort West. Even earlier than this, a 

 French society had tried the experiment of Ostrich farms in Algeria. 



^In June 1909, the Cunard liner, Mauretania, sailed from Liverpool with 

 what was believed to be a record cargo of twenty tons of Ostrich feathers. They 

 came from South Africa and were going to New York. They were valued at 

 £100,000. 



