uileless manner asked me to sell them to her for her
new hat! The rest of the day I was of little service to the world.

What was the good of all the long years of unceasing effort to induce
women to stop wearing bird feathers, if this was a fair example of
results? Of all the women I knew, there was no one who had been in a
position to learn more of the facts regarding bird slaughter than this
one; yet it seems that it had never entered her mind to make a personal
application of the lesson she had learned. The education and restraint
of legislative enactments were all meant for other people.

_Ostrich Feathers Are Desirable._--How is this deep-seated desire and
demand for feathers to be met? Domestic fowls will in part supply it;
but for the finer ornaments we must turn to the Ostrich, the only bird
in the world which has been domesticated {163} exclusively for its
feather product. These birds were formerly found wild in Arabia,
southwestern Persia, and practically the whole of Africa. In
diminishing numbers they are still to be met with in these regions,
especially in the unsettled parts of Africa north of the Orange River.
From early times the plumes of these avian giants have been in demand
for head decorations, and for centuries the people of Asia and Africa
killed the birds for this purpose. They were captured chiefly by means
of pitfalls, for a long-legged bird which in full flight can cover
twenty-five feet at a stride is not easily overtaken, even with the
Arabs' finest steeds.

So far as there is any record, young Ostriches were first captured and
enclosed with a view of rearing them for profit in the year 1857. This
occurred in South Africa. During the years which have since elapsed,
the raising of Ostriches and the exportation of their plumes has become
one of the chief business enterprises of South Africa. Very naturally
people in other parts of the world wished to engage in a {164} similar
enterprise when they saw with what success the undertaking was crowned
in the home country of the Ostrich. A few hundred fine breeding birds
and a considerable number of eggs were purchased by adventurous spirits
and exported, with the result that Ostrich farms soon sprang up in
widely separated localities over the earth. The lawmakers of Cape
Colony looked askance at these competitors and soon prohibited Ostrich
exportation. Before these drastic measures were taken, however, a
sufficient number of birds h