180 THE IMPORTANCE OF BIRD LIFE 



V-shaped pen, where a hood is slipped over its 

 head. The sudden darkness produces a docility in 

 the bird, which may then be handled with im- 

 punity, without fear of a vicious kick from one of 

 its powerful limbs. Each plume is separately 

 examined, and those wholly opened out are 

 clipped off with a pair of shears, leaving the quiU 

 stubs embedded in the flesh. Any young feathers 

 not fully unfolded, or in which the blood still flows, 

 are not touched. If by chance they should be 

 clipped, the fresh feathers which later replace 

 them wiU most likely be deformed, a condition 

 not at all desirable. 



The operation of plucking is entirely without 

 pain to the ostrich: no arteries are severed, no 

 nerve is injured ; the dead chitinous barrel of the 

 plume alone suffers. Two months after the opera- 

 tion the quill stubs, now replaced by young blood- 

 feather shoots, may be extracted without the 

 slightest notice being taken by the bird. 



South Africa, however, though the original home 

 of the ostrich under domestication, is no longer the 

 sole seat of that industry. Ostrich farming is 

 now practised in many countries ; in various parts 

 of Africa, in Argentina, and in the United States. 

 It has met with wide-spread popularity in Egypt 

 and in British and French Nigeria, and the Su- 

 danese are learning more modern methods. For 

 centuries the Sudanese have reared wild caught 

 chicks, but until recently they have made no at- 



