“How many feathers can be plucked from each bird a year?”
“About three quarters of a pound of first-class feathers, besides the inferior sorts. There are now such quantities of ostriches in the colony, that the price of feathers has gone down materially, and is now not so high as the figures I have given you. The highest class feathers, however, still maintain their price, and are likely to do so, for the demand for feathers in Europe increases at as rapid a rate as does the production.”
“I suppose they could not be kept in England?” Dick asked; “for there must be a splendid profit on such farming.”
“No,” Mr Harvey replied; “they want above all things a dry climate. Warmth is of course important, but even this is less essential than dryness. They may be reared in England under artificial conditions, but they would never grow up strong and healthy in this way, and would no doubt be liable to disease—besides, as even in their native country you see that the feathers deteriorate in strength and diminish in value in domesticated birds, there would probably be so great a falling off in the yield and value of feathers in birds kept under artificial conditions in England that the speculation would not be likely to pay.”
“Do the hens sit on their eggs, as ordinary hens?”
“Just the same,” Mr Harvey answered, “and very funny they look with their long legs sticking out. Not only does the hen sit, but the cock takes his turn at keeping the eggs warm when the mother goes out to feed.”
“I shall ask father,” Dick said, “when we get back, to arrange to take these fifteen ostriches as part of his share of the venture; it would be great fun to see them stalking about.”
“Ah! we have not got them home yet,” Mr Harvey replied, smiling; “we must not be too sanguine. We have certainly begun capitally, but there is no saying what adventures are before us yet. We have been particularly fortunate in seeing nothing of the tzetze fly. As you know, we have made several considerable détours to avoid tracts of country where they are known to prevail, still, occasionally they are met with in unexpected places, and I have seldom made a trip without losing some of my horses and cattle from them.”
“How is it that a fly can kill a horse? They are not larger than our blue-bottles at home, for I saw one in a naturalist’s window in Pieter-Maritzburg.”
“It is a mystery, Dick, which has not yet been solved; there are flies in other parts of the world, whose bite is sufficiently poisonous to raise bumps underneath the skins of animals, but nothing approaching the tzetze in virulence. It certainly appears unaccountable that the venom of so small a creature should be able to kill a great animal like a horse or an ox.”