OSTRICH FARMING. 
4i 
and would become of little or no value. If feathers are now 
drawn and not cut, it is the exception, and could only be done 
by an inexperienced ostrich farmer.” 
The Hon. P. L. Van der Byl, M.L.C., writes from the Cape 
to the same effect. “ I beg to state that no cruelty whatever is 
practised on the birds ; the feathers are cut, not plucked (though 
that word still remains in common parlance.)” 
Mr. Evans, of Reitfontein, Cape Colony, in a letter to the 
Times some years ago, says: “ I cannot assert that no acts of 
cruelty are committed ; even now perhaps a few birds are 
plucked still. But with my extensive acquaintance with the 
Colony, I know of no breeder anywhere who is guilty of such 
folly. . . . Plucking reduces both the quantity and value 
of the feathers, and ultimately leads to ruin.” 
From Mr. G. Nathan’s interesting paper in Longman's Maga- 
zine some time back, we learn that it was in 1875 that the farmers 
began first to adopt the plan of cutting the feathers ; before that 
time “ they blundered along in their own way, learning their 
experience.” Many of the ostrich camps are over two thousand 
acres in extent, and afford a wide run for the domesticated 
birds. Of the general gain of the colony through the rise of 
ostrich-farming, there can be no doubt. “ It has given to large 
extent of sheep runs, a rest ; it has been the means of partially 
ridding many farms of the prickly pear, a cactus highly palate- 
able to the ostrich, but a pest to the farmer ; and it has made 
farmers fence in large tracts of country. The ‘ boom ’ in feathers 
came when all produce of the Colony was very low, and for the 
time being saved the farming population from bankruptcy. . . . 
Many farmers still believe in it as a permanent industry.” 
Perhaps no bird has been so much noticed by ancient writers 
as the ostrich. The Arabs have a saying that “ Allah gave 
fortune to the ostrich by touching its wings with his lips.” It 
has been connected from earliest times with sacred symbols and 
with the state of Kings. 
Sir H. Layard tells us that Ostrich feathers appear on the 
robes of the ancient sculptures of Nimrod and on the Babylonian 
and Assyrian cylinders. Canon Tristram points out that the 
word often translated “owl” in the Old Testament, is really 
the ostrich, to whose “hoarse complaining cry by night, Job 
compares his lamentations. . . . The same simile occurs 
in Micah — ‘ mourning as the ostriches.’ ” 
The ostrich feather is used as a symbol of justice on the 
Egyptian hieroglyphic monuments, because of the even and 
equally-balanced .filaments on each side of the quill. In early 
days the plumes seem to have been more worn by men than by 
women. Aristophanes, in his comedy, “ Acharnenses,” speaks 
of a General wearing two white ostrich feathers in his helmet ; 
and we have an example in our own royal history, where the 
Black Prince adopted the three ostrich plumes of the slain King 
of Bohemia ; they have continued ever since the badge of the 
