XIV 
PIGS, CATTLE, OSTRICHES 
*39 
best obtained, according to Mr. E. R. Montgomerie, 
veterinary pathologist to the Protectorate, by segre¬ 
gating all new purchases for at least six weeks before 
allowing them the run of the usual grazing grounds. 
Ostriches .—As regards ostriches the Protectorate is 
yet in its infancy, but there is every reason to hope that 
it is the infancy of a very lusty child. The main 
ground for this optimism lies in the fact that the wild 
birds, which form the foundation on which the industry 
is being built, are of altogether superior stamp to those 
which were the original stock of South Africa. Pro¬ 
fessor T. E. Duerdon, one of the most eminent 
authorities on ostrich breeding, in the course of a 
series of most interesting articles published in South 
Africa, makes some noteworthy admissions. He states 
therein that all the many years of selection and breed¬ 
ing, and the expenditure of enormous sums of money, 
have not tended to raise the individual desirable 
qualities of individual feathers. Furthermore, that it 
is impossible to do so. The professor states with 
authority that the original wild stock of South Africa 
possessed occasional feathers of equal length to any 
now grown, occasional feathers of equal shape, others of 
equal density, hardness, or gloss. All that the science 
of breeding has been able to effect has been to combine 
the various highest qualities into one feather, and 
gradually to ensure the fixity of such feathers and 
complete crops of the highest class. Thus a single 
one of the finest plumes of the modern bird could not 
be matched by a wild bird in the combined essentials 
of size, shape, density, hardness, and gloss ; still less 
could he be matched with regard to the complete crop. 
In one point it is indeed admitted that the domesticated 
ostrich has actually deteriorated, and that is in the 
