FEATHER INDUSTRIES 177 



trich. skins, the natives stalked the birds, and slew 

 them with poison-tipped arrows. They were 

 snared and trapped, and ridden down on horse- 

 back. And as a result they became wary, scarce, 

 and diffifcult to secure. 



The natives were able to obtain enough plumes 

 for their own use, but Europe went begging. As 

 the supply decreased, the price of ostrich-feathers 

 soared to unheard-of heights. White men took up 

 the profession of ostrich hunting, but met with 

 indifferent success. The !Suropean world was 

 faced with a famine in plumes. Then it was that 

 a Dutch settler in South Africa made the discov- 

 ery that ostriches could be bred on a commercial 

 scale in captivity. 



The first serious attempt to tame the birds took 

 place in 1863, but several years elapsed before 

 eggs could be hatched and chicks reared under the 

 care of man. Once the fact was established, how- 

 ever, that such a thing was possible, ostrich farm- 

 ing took a boom. The value of plumes was higher 

 than ever. 



The rearing of ostriches soon became a recog- 

 nized industry of South Africa. Great sums of 

 money .began to be realized and many Boer 

 farmers grew rich. Within twenty years after 

 the first birds had been domesticated there were 

 nearly a third of a million of them in the colony. 

 By 1913 the number of ostriches had risen to ap- 

 proximately nine hundred thcfusand, with an an- 



