S 
safety be drawn while green. Certain it is that the gain from too frequent 
clippings is so compar atively small, and is attended with so many risks, that 
the careful farmer will be well advised not to adopt the method. 
=~ 
SUMMARY. 
The chief influences which have been shown to determine the quality 
and completeness of the feather crop of any particular bird may now he 
summarised. 
1. The first and most important is that of the nutritive condition of 
the bird at or shortly before the beginning of the crop. Only when a 
bird is in a high nutritive condition at quilling can we be assured of a 
complete even crop, the best the bird can produce. 
2. An improving or upgrade nutritive condition is more likely to 
awaken dormant germs to activity than if the bird is kept in a uniforim 
state. 
3. Blanks are less likely to occur in sockets from which the quilis 
when drawn are under-ripe than when drawn over-ripe, but the drawing 
of immature quills is found to deteriorate the succeeding crop. 
4. The appearance of the skin, whether scaly or clean, is of assistance 
in determining whether a bird is in a suitable condition or otherwise for 
starting a crop of feathers. 
5. The completeness and quality of the crop is partly dependent upon 
the season of the year, and the sexual condition of the bird. Other 
things being equal, the best crops are produced during the non-breeding 
season of the year. 
6. Sockets giving blanks by quilling at unfavourable times are likely 
to recover under better conditions, though less likely in the case of young 
than of mature birds. 
7. Sockets giving inferior feathers as‘a result of plucking the plumes 
while green recover their original power in the succeeding crop. 
8. Under proper care and management (not quilling too frequently) aa 
ostrich will continue to give a feather crop without much deterioration for 
thirty-five years, and will continue to breed for that period, and Eph 
much longer. 
