786 



RHEA 



already described in the case of other Ratite birds. Like most of 

 them it is polygamous, and the male performs the duty of incuba- 

 tion, brooding more than a score of eggs, the produce of several 

 females— facts known to Nieremberg more than two hundred and 

 fifty years since, but hardly accepted by naturalists until recently. 



Rhea. 



From causes which, if explicable, do not here concern us, no 

 examples of this bird seem to have been brought to Europe before 

 the beginning of the present century, and accordingly the descriptions 

 previously given of it by systematic writers were taken at second 

 hand, and were mostly defective if not misleading. In 1803 

 Latham issued a Avretched figure of the species from a half-grown 



