COMMON RHEA 233 
is running, the wings hang down as if injured, 
but usually one wing is raised and held up like a 
great sail, for what reason it is impossible to say. 
When hard pressed, the Rhea doubles frequently 
and rapidly at right angles to its course; and if the 
pursuer’s horse is not well trained to follow the bird 
in all its sudden turns without losing ground he is 
quickly left far behind. 
In the month of July the love-season begins, and 
it is then that the curious ventriloquial bellowing, 
booming, and wind-like sounds are emitted by the 
male. The young males in the flock are attacked 
and driven off by the old cock-bird; and when 
there are two old males they fight for the hens. Their 
battles are conducted in a rather curious manner, 
the combatants twisting their long necks together 
like a couple of serpents, and then viciously biting 
at each other’s heads with their beaks ; meanwhile 
they turn round and round in a circle, pounding 
the earth with their feet, so that where the soil is 
wet or soft they make a circular trench where they 
tread. The females of a flock all lay together in a 
natural depression in the ground, with nothing to 
shelter it from sight, each hen laying a dozen or more 
eggs. It is common to find thirty to sixty eggs in a 
nest, but sometimes a larger number, and I have 
heard of a nest being found containing one hundred 
and twenty eggs. If the females are many the cock 
usually becomes broody before they finish laying, 
and he then drives them with great fury away and 
begins to incubate, The hens then drop their eggs 
