The birds are plucked before they are a year old, and I think that no one as yet knows the limit of age to which they will live and be plucked. I saw birds which had been plucked for sixteen years and were still in high feather. When the plucking time has come the necessary number of birds are enticed by a liberal display of mealies,--as maize or Indian corn is called in South Africa,--into a pen one side of which is moveable. The birds will go willingly after mealies, and will run about their paddocks after any one they see, in the expectation of these delicacies. When the pen is full the moveable side is run in, so that the birds are compressed together beyond the power of violent struggling. They cannot spread their wings or make the dart forward which is customary to them when about to kick. Then men go in among them, and taking up their wings pluck or cut their feathers. Both processes are common but the former I think is most so, as being the more profitable. There is a heavier weight to sell when the feather is plucked; and the quil begins to grow again at once, whereas the process is delayed when nature is called upon to eject the stump. I did not see the thing done, but I was assured that the little notice taken by the animal of the operation may be accepted as proof that the pain, if any, is slight. I leave this question to the decision of naturalists and anti-vivisectors. The feathers are then sorted into various lots, the white primary outside rim from under the bird’s wing being by far the most valuable,--being sold, as I have said before, at a price as high as £25 a pound. The sorting does not seem to be a difficult operation and is done by coloured men. The produce is then packed in boxes and sent down to be sold at Port Elizabeth by auction.