BIRDS. 545 



who sits on the eggs and takes care of the young.* The 

 female is said by Mr. T. W. Wood f to exhibit during the 

 breeding-season a most pugnacious disposition ; and her 

 wattles then become enlarged and more brilliantly colored. 

 So again the female of one of the emus {Dromceus irroratus) 

 is considerably larger than the male, and she possesses a slight 

 top-knot, but is otherwise indistinguishable in plumage. 

 She appears, however, " to have greater power, when angry 

 or otherwise excited, of erecting, like a turkey-cock, the 

 feathers of her neck and breast. She is usually the more 

 courageous and pugilistic. She makes a deep, hollow, gut- 

 tural boom especially at night, sounding like a small gong. 

 The male has a slenderer frame and is more docile, with no 

 voice beyond a suppressed hiss when angry, or a croak." 

 He not only performs the whole duty of incubation, but 

 has to defend the young from their mother; '' for as soon 

 as she catches sight of her progeny she becomes violently 

 agitated, and notwithstanding the resistance of the father 

 appears to use her utmost endeavors to destroy them. For 

 months afterward it is unsafe to put the parents together, 

 violent quarrels being the inevitable result, in which the 

 female generally comes off conqueror."]; So that with this 

 emu we have a complete reversal not only of the parental 

 and incubating instincts, but of the usual moral qualities of 

 the two sexes; the females being savage, quarrelsome and 

 noisy, the males gentle and good. The case is very dif- 

 ferent with the African ostrich, for the male is somewhat 

 larger than the female and has finer plumes, with more 

 strongly contrasted colors; nevertheless he undertakes the 

 whole duty of incubation. 



*The natives of Ceram (Wallace, "Malay Archipelago," vol. ii. 

 p. 150) assert that the male and female sit alternately on the eggs; 

 but this assertion, as Mr. Bartlett thinks, may be accounted for by 

 the female visiting the nest to lay her eggs. 



+ " The Student," April, 1870, p. 124. 



X See the excellent account of the habits of this bird under con- 

 finement, by Mr. A. W. Bennett, in " Land and Water," May, 1868, 

 p. 233. 



Mr. Sclater, on the incubation of the Struthiones, " Proc. Zool. 

 Soc," JuneO, 1863. So it is with the Rhea daricinii: Capt. Mus- 

 ters says ("At Home with the Patagonians," 1871, p. 128), that the 

 male is larger, stronger and swifter than the female, and of slightly 

 darker colors; yet he takes sole charge of the eggs and of the young, 

 just as does the male of the common species of Rhea. 



