183.1.1 HABITS OF THE OSTRICH. 91 



The cock when on the nest lies very close ; I have myself almost 

 ridden over one. It is asserted that at such times they are occa- 

 sionally fierce, and even dangerous, and that they have been 

 known to attack a man on horseback, trj'ing to kick and leap on 

 him. My informer pointed out to me an old man, whom he had 

 seen much terrified by one chasing him. I observe in Burcheli's 

 travels in South Africa, that he remarks, " Having killed a male, 

 ostrich, and the feathers being dirty, it was said by the Ho: ten- 

 tots to be a nest bird." I understand that the male emu in the 

 Zoological Gardens takes charge of the nest : this habit, there- 

 fore, is common to the family. 



The Gauchos unanimously affirm that several females lay in 

 one nest. I have been positively told that four or five hen birds 

 have been watched to go in the middle of the day, one after the 

 other, to the same nest. I may add, also, that it is believed in 

 Africa, that two or more females lay in one nest.* Although 

 this habit at first appears very strange, I think the cause may 

 be explained in a simple manner. The number of eggs in th»» 

 nest varies from twenty to forty, and even to fifty ; and accord- 

 ing to Azara, sometimes to seventy or eighty. Now although 

 it is most probable, from the number of eggs found in one dis- 

 trict being so extraordinarily great in proportion to the parent 

 birds, and likewise from the state of the ovarium of the hen, that 

 she may in the course of the season lay a large number, yet the 

 time required must be very long. Azara states,! that a female 

 in a state of domestication laid seventeen eggs, each at the inter- 

 val of three days one from another. If the hen was obliged to 

 hatch her own eggs, before the last was laid the first probably 

 would be addled ; but if each laid a few eggs at successive 

 periods, in difi'erent nests, and several hens, as is stated to be the 

 case, combined together, then the eggs in one collection would 

 be nearly of the same age. If the number of eggs in one of 

 these nests is, as I believe, not greater on an average than the 

 number laid by one female in the season, then there must be as 

 many nests as females, and each cock bird will have its fair share 

 af the labour of incubation ; and that during a period when the 



* Burcheli's Travels, vol. i. p. 280. 

 t Azara, vol. iv. p. 1 73. 



