Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/652

640 birds swallow, as aids to digestion. Pepsine is unknown among those birds of the desert, and they introduce a quantity of hard substances into their gizzard, to assist them in grinding up their food; just as the dyspeptic featherless biped takes his morning bitters to help the secretion of the gastric juices. It is very amusing to watch the flock of young birds as the attendant enters to scatter their breakfast. The moment he appears with his load of "green-meat," the youngsters of the ostrich family trot up to the entrance, and caper and dance about in the most grotesque manner, and devour their food with evident relish. They are generally tame, and to a certain extent tractable; but as they grow old they sometimes evince a sourness of temper which is anything but encouraging to the formation of a near acquaintance with them.

As the feathers are picked they are sorted according to their quality and purity of colour. The pure whites from the wings are called "bloods," the next quality, "prime whites;" "firsts;" "seconds;" and so on. The tail feathers are not so valuable, and the more irregular the markings of the coloured varieties, the less valuable are they. "Bloods" will fetch from forty to fifty pounds sterling per pound-weight in the wholesale market; and from this price they range as low as five shillings per pound.

The quality of the feathers produced by tame ostriches is fully equal to the best collected from "wild" birds, while the general average is much higher. Notwithstanding the increasing yield, prices are rising instead of falling; indeed, good ostrich feathers are now thrice as dear as they were fifteen years ago. But it is more than probable that as the production increases the price will eventually fall. Even with reduced prices, the profits would be sufficiently large to render ostrich-farming a very profitable undertaking, and, as each year will increase the experience of breeders, the difficulties will be gradually diminished, and losses more easily avoided. As it is, this strange industry — the domestication of the wild birds of the desert, once regarded as types of liberty and intractability — is at the same time one of the most interesting and most profitable of the African trader.

 

  Times correspondent at Shanghai gives some interesting details of the latest advances towards western civilization attempted by the Japanese. The first and most important is the effort, which really appears to be made with some adaptive skill as well as prudence, to introduce parliamentary institutions into Japan. An Assembly and a Senate have been constituted at Yeddo. The former was opened by the mikado in person on the 20th of June; it is not founded on a representative basis, nor has it legislative power, though it is believed that the leaders of the Japanese Liberals aim at ultimately giving it both the one and the other. They understand, however, and it is very creditable to them if they do, that "the chasm which divides feudalism from popular government cannot be passed at a leap." The new Assembly is, therefore, merely a gathering of the provincial governors or prefects at Yeddo, with the privilege of originating and discussing such projects of law as may occur to them or be submitted to them by the government. The mikado in his "speech from the throne" explained the views of his ministers. He said : —

These observations are commonplace enough in themselves, but in the mouth of a potentate who only a few years ago was almost worshipped as a manifestation of the Deity, and was shrouded jealously from vulgar eyes, they are very significant. The Senate, the Times correspondent writes, "was opened on July 5, also by the mikado in person, and with the same state and ceremony. Its functions are much more ambitious than the Assembly's, but no such precise definition of them has yet been made public." Another novelty, imitative of European conditions and pointing to the growth of a new power in the community, is a press-law of a rather rigorous type.