39 
OSTRICH FARMING. 
URING a visit to the Cape a few years ago, I chanced 
to spend a fortnight at an ostrich farm belonging to 
a relative. As the growing of ostrich feathers may be 
of interest to the readers of the Selborne Society’s 
Magazine, I send a short account of what I there saw and 
learnt. 
To one in search of the picturesque, an ostrich farm is a 
grievous disappointment. The country around, it is true, is 
very beautiful ; but the farm itself, a one-storied building, sur- 
rounded by a number of square enclosures (each containing a pair 
of birds), some sheds for the incubators and for storing food, 
does not offer much attraction for the pencil. The native who 
tends the birds, and goes gaily about, dressed in the cast-off 
clothes of his master, may be a loveable creature, but is certainly 
not a lovely one. 
The birds themselves, gaunt and ugly, are perhaps the 
greatest disappointment. They are extremely timid, and when 
alarmed, will rush at and break through almost any fence, and 
run for miles. They have the greatest aversion towards dogs ; 
and as a scare may result in the loss of several birds, the farmer 
has no mercy, and shoots every member of the canine species 
that comes near his place. 
A full-grown ostrich must be handled very cautiously, as a 
blow from its foot is often fatal. This foot, which looks like one 
large toe, has a formidable-looking claw at its extremity, and 
this, added to the enormous strength of the leg, makes it a 
dangerous weapon. Its neck is weak, so the keepers, profiting 
by their knowledge, have learned to keep the bird at a safe 
distance when it approaches by means of a long forked stick, 
which seizes the neck just below the head, and which the bird 
has not wit or power to avoid. 
The chickens are all hatched in incubators ; and to keep their 
sham mothers at an even temperature is a continual source 
of anxiety to the “ strauss-vogel ” boer. Some ten or fifteen 
years ago, when ostrich-farming was very remunerative, every 
one who could scrape together enough money bought a pair of 
birds. Those less pecunious bought a chicken or even an 
unhatched egg, despite the proverb, and these small growers 
often reaped a good harvest. 
Things were, however, in a very different state when I was 
at the Cape. A disease was spreading among the farms, with 
which no one seemed able to cope, and many valuable birds 
died. In fear and trembling my host would visit his pens of a 
morning to see what havoc the epidemic had made. As the 
sums paid for ostriches are considerably larger than what we 
pay here for carriage-horses, his anxiety was not to be wondered 
at. Their value is greatly increased when they have paired, for 
