title="33"/>melancholy failures in the business. A friend of mine started an ostrich farm on a sandstone ridge. There was no limestone on the farm, and most of the birds died in a few months, and those that lived laid no eggs and produced very few feathers. Limestone was carted to the farm from a considerable distance, and the birds would not touch it. Bones were then tried and with admirable effect. What the birds required was phosphate of lime, and the bones gave them that. They rushed at them with great eagerness, and as soon as they were well supplied with bones they began to improve in health and to lay eggs. On farms like the one I mentioned, a quarter of a pound of sulphur and some salt is mixed with two buckets of pulverized bones, and the birds are allowed to eat as much of this mixture as they like. Where the rocks, grass, and soil contain alkaline salts in abundance, the birds require very little, if any, artificial food, and they thrive, fatten, pair, and lay eggs in the most satisfactory manner.”

“According to the story books,” said Harry, “the ostrich will eat anything. But from what you say, Mr. Shaffner, it does not seem that that is really the case.”

“The ostrich has a very good appetite, I must say,” was the reply, “and so far as green things are concerned, he will eat almost anything; lucerne, clover, wheat, corn, cabbage leaves, fruit, grain, and garden vegetables are all welcome, and he eats a certain quantity of crushed limestone and bones, and generally keeps a few pebbles in his stomach to assist him in the process of digestion. If he sees a bright sparkling stone on the ground, he is very apt to swallow it, and that reminds me of a little incident about two years ago. An English gentleman was visiting my place, and while he was looking around he came close up to the fence of a paddock containing a number of ostriches. An ostrich was on the other side of the fence and close to it. The gentleman had a large diamond in his shirt front, and while he was looking at the bird, the latter, with a quick movement of his head, wrenched the stone from its setting and swallowed it. I see that none of you wear diamonds, and so it is not necessary for me to repeat the caution which I have ever since given to my diamond-wearing visitors.”

“What became of the diamond?” Harry asked.

“Oh! my visitor bought the bird and had it killed, in order to get the diamond back again. He found it safe in the creature’s stomach, along with several small stones. It was a particularly valuable gem, and the gentleman had no idea of allowing the bird to keep it.”

Ned wanted to know if ostriches lived in flocks like barnyard fowls, or divided off into pairs like the majority of forest and field birds.

“That depends a great deal upon the farmer,” Mr. Shaffner answered. “The pairing season is in the month of July, which is equivalent to the English January. Some farmers, when the pairing time approaches, put a male and female bird together in a pen; some put two females with a male, and very often a male bird has five hens in his family. The birds run in pairs or flocks, as the case may be. In August, the hens begin to lay, and continue to deposit eggs for a period of six weeks. They do not lay every day, like domestic fowls, but every second or third day. As I have already told you, the eggs are taken as soon as laid and hatched in an incubator. Sixteen birds out of twenty eggs is considered a very fair proportion, while, if the bird is allowed to sit on the eggs, we are not likely to get more than twelve out of twenty. There is another advantage in hatching eggs by the incubator process, and that is, that when the eggs are taken away the hen proceeds a few weeks later to lay another batch of eggs, which she does not do if she has a family to care for.”

“What do you do with the young birds when they are hatched?”

“We put them in a warm room,” was the reply, “and at night they are put in a box lined with wool; they are fed with chopped grass suitable to them, and as soon as they are able to run about they are entrusted to the care of a small boy, a Kaffir or Hottentot, to whom they get strongly attached. They grow quite rapidly and begin to feather at eight months after hatching, but the yield at that time is of very little value. Eight months later there is another and better crop, and then at each season the crop improves until the birds are four or five years old, when it reaches its maximum condition. Exactly how long an ostrich will live, I don’t know. There are some birds here in South Africa that are twenty years old, and they are strong and healthy yet.”

Conversation ran on in various ways until the station was reached where our friends were to leave the train. The carriage was waiting for them, and the party drove at once to the farm, where Mr. Shaffner showed them about the place, and called attention to the flocks of birds straying about the different paddocks. It so happened that a flock had been driven up that very morning for the purpose of cutting such of the feathers as were in proper condition to be removed from the birds.

While the men were driving the birds into the kraal, Mr. Shaffner explained that there was a difference of opinion among farmers as to whether the feathers should be plucked or cut. He said that when the feather is plucked or pulled out at the roots it is apt to make a bad sore, and at any rate cause a great deal of pain; while the feather that grows in its place is apt to be twisted or of poor quality, and occasionally the birds die, as a result of the operation. When a feather is nipped off with pincers or cut with a knife the bird is quite insensible to the operation. The stumps that are left in the flesh of the ostrich fall out in the course of a month or six weeks, or can be easily drawn out, and then a new and good feather grows in place of the old one. The reason why plucking still finds advocates is that the feathers with the entire quill bring a higher price in the market than those that have been cut or nipped.

Harry and Ned watched with much interest the process of removing feathers from the birds. Here is the way Harry describes it.

“The men moved around among the ostriches in a perfectly easy way, and seemed to be on the best of terms with their charges. The foreman selected a bird and indicated to one of the men that he wanted it brought forward. Thereupon the man seized the bird by the neck and pressed its head downward until he could draw a sack like a long and very large stocking over it.

“When blindfolded in this way the ostrich is perfectly helpless, and will stand perfectly still. The man pushed and led the bird up to the fence, and then the foreman, armed with his cutting nippers, selected the feathers that he wanted and cut them off. When the operation was ended the sack was removed, and the ostrich resumed his place among his companions. He did not strike, or kick, or indicate in any way that he was aware of what had happened to him.

“During their breeding time the male ostriches are decidedly vicious, and it is dangerous to go near them. Mr. Shaffner told us that several serious accidents had happened to his men at such times. Occasionally a bird shows more or less ugliness on being driven into a kraal, and when this is the case caution must be used in approaching him. The ostrich’s favorite mode of fighting is to strike or kick with one leg, and he can give a terrible blow in this way.

“I asked Mr. Shaffner,” said Harry, “what was the value of a good ostrich. He replied that the question was one he could not answer in a single phrase. He said that an egg was worth not less than five dollars, and an ostrich chick, fresh from the egg, was worth twenty-five dollars.

“After a few months it was double that