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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. LIII 



however the greatest attention has been devoted to the 

 many characters of the plume and only the best plumage 

 birds have been employed as breeders, the chief reason 

 being the great difference in returns from clippings of 

 high quality compared with those of an ordinary or infe- 

 rior type. An intensive study has arisen in connection 

 with the various structural details of the feather and also 

 with the measures necessary for their production in the 

 highest state of excellence ; among the latter are included 

 both the feeding and management of the birds as well as 

 selection in breeding. It is probably safe to say that no 

 domestic animal has been more intensively and intelli- 

 gently studied by the farmer than the high grade ostrich, 

 or more pampered in its treatment. Breeding sets, a cock 

 and a hen, known to produce progeny giving superior 

 plumage have frequently realized as much as $5,000. 



The ''points" of the ostrich plume relate to details con- 

 cerning the length, width, density, lustre, shapeliness and 

 evenness of the flue (vanes) and the form and strength of 

 the shaft, and a highly technical terminology has arisen 

 in connection therewith. An ostrich produces annually 

 from 200 to 300 commercial feathers, belonging to a dozen 

 or more different classes— whites, byocks, blacks, drabs, 

 floss, tails— each with its many subdivisions. Each indi- 

 vidual feather is handled and specially examined several 

 times in the processes of clipping, arranging, sorting and 

 selling, before being exported, and prior to the war two or 

 three hundred millions of feathers were in this manner 

 passed in review. 



Under such keenly discriminating circumstances it will 

 be understood that if any plumage variation presented 

 itself it would be at once recognized and brought to gen- 

 eral notice. A bird giving rise to a departure of any 

 moment in a desirable direction in connection with any 

 of the feather points mentioned would represent a fortune 

 to its owner. But not a single case has ever been forth- 

 coming. WitJiout any hesitancy it can be afjinned that in 

 the course of the fifty years during ivhich the ostrich has 



