Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1888-07-07

piucked every SIX months. and the less thrifty
birds every eight or nine months. The
yield of feathers from each is from
one to one and a half pounds. aud
the farmer receives for his product ffom
go to $50 pound An extra bird sou,e
times yields 500 worth of feathers at time.
When the plucking season arrives, the birds
are harnessed up in a narrow stall and care
fully oIndfoided for fear the officiating
clergyman may be kicked through the fence
Inc ostrich becomes exceedingly angry with
the pulling OF his feathers, and his kick is
one OF the most swift and dangerous reac-
tions ever excited among the muscles and
tendons OF animated nature. When the bird
Is angry he lifts his wings, throws forward
his head somewhat, and utters sort of hiss,
which he bites off with snap of his bill
About this time look out for action.
After our visit to the ostrich farm we
made our way down to the beach and spent
some hours on the shore of the Pacific
Here, for the first time in my life, had an
opportunity to study and compare this
majestic water with the other seas and
oceans. One might as well suppose that
an ocean is an ocean, without its
characteristic features; that one is as
the other; but not So The ocean is
glorious in its individuality as in its
strength and grandeur. In the first place.
the shore has an ever varying condition.
The Pacific coast is totally different from
that OF the Atlantic, in that it is almost
everywhere precipitous, broken off square
down to the deep Sometimes the precipice
Is hundreds Of feet in height Sometimes
the square wall, which is thus far of the
surf, is long and low: but rarely do we
have the gentle sloping beach peculiar to
the Atlantic shores II you stand upon the
precipice Of the Pacific and look down to the
surf you shall find almost everywhere quar-
ter or half mile of shingle, which is the de
batable ground alternately covered and un-
covered by the tide. At high tide the ocean
roars against the foot of the precipice, and no
beach is seen; but at the low tide the surf
line Is out at considerable distance and thou
sands Of people may gather down there on
the strand between the ocean wall and the
break Of the sea- Such is the general aspect
of all those parts of the Pacific coast which /
have visited.
The next fact is that Of the greater
grandeur of the Pacific as to the visual ex-
panse, the length and height of the pillows
and the majesty Of the ocean symphony. l
do not know how it is that the Pacific can
suggest its extent and almightiness to the be-
holder on the shore; it may be his own knowl-
edge that infnity is before him; but the scene
does inform him, in some way, that the inf
mite is there. The incoming pillows, even
when the sea is most calm, are, according to
my estimate, from ten to twenty feet in per-
pendicular height. Each wave stretches
laterally for miles and miles.
The ocean rhythm has its mathenatical and
musical succession. 1t has its mighty poeti-
cal feet 1t has an anapest or a dactyl, an
amphibrach or a molossus, according to the
mood Of the spirit that broods upon the
waters.
Break. break, break,
At the foot Of thy crags, o sea;
But the tender grace of the day that Is dead
VIII never come back to me
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.