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