Identifier: ostrichfarmingin00doug (find matches)
Title: Ostrich farming in South Africa. Being an account of its origin and rise; how to set about it; the profits to be derived; how to manage the birds; the capital required; the diseases and difficulties to be met with, &c. &c
Year: 1881 (1880s)
Authors: Douglass, Arthur
Subjects: Ostrich farms Ostrich farming
Publisher: London, Paris & New York, Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ion of carnivorous animals, especially in acountry like this which so abounds with every species ofthem. The lion is only found so far in the interior nowthat it need not be remarked upon ; and, strange tosay, the wild dogs which are so destructive to sheepand goats when running at large, have not yet learnt todestroy our Ostriches, but they may do so any day. Theworst of the carnivora to the Ostrich-farmer is, parexcellence^ the tiger ; next, the jackal, the wild cat forlittle chicks, the lynx for larger ones, and the nativesand other peoples dogs worse than any of these. A thousand years ago the then civilised world wasenlightened enough to offer large rewards for thedestruction of carnivora, and even sixty years ago wedid so at the Cape; but the ordinance has been allowedto flill in abeyance; and an enlightened (?), responsibleMinistry replied to the author in a letter he addressed tothem on the subject, they did not consider it was amatter which concerned them. So that we must not
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DESTRUCTION OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS. 187 be surprised that the tiger and the jackal are asnumerous in the country as they were twenty years ago. The tiger will often live for a long time in closeproximity to an Ostrich-camp without molesting thebirds ; but once let him—or rather I should say she, asit is generally the vixen that is the offending party—kill a bird, and the farmer will liave no peace till thetiser is killed. If the bird or animal which was killedthe previous night is found, and strychnine put in with-out moving the carcase in any way, the tiger will oftenreturn, and be found poisoned not far off. Pills—thatis, lumps of meat with about a grain of strychnine—should also be laid about in all directions; whilst a bushfence across the kloof, with holes left for the tiger tocreep through should be made—in each of which shouldbe placed one of the ordinary double-spring tiger ginsthat are sold in all colonial towns. Or, a little half-moonbush hockey should be made, and

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