THE OSTRICHES AND THEIR ALLIES. 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE, 



CURATOR OF BIRDS. 



PART L GENERAL ACCOUNT. 



ON December 25. 1904, the Ostrich House in the Xew York 

 Zoological Park was opened to the public. This build- 

 ing will eventually be filled with birds of this great Subclass, 

 of which there are four groups living on the earth to-day — 

 the Ostriches, Rheas, Enieus. Cassowaries and, like dimunitive 

 Davids among these Goliaths. the Apteryges or Kiwis. These 

 birds well deserve an entire building to themselves, for not only 

 are they of majestic appearance and of great interest to the ordi- 

 nary visitor, but to the zoologist they ofifer for future work a 

 host of unsolved problems.* 



These great birds possess much the same interest for us as 

 does the remnant of the races of American aborigines. One, as 

 surely as the other, is bound, before many years, to disappear 

 from the surface of the earth and become but a memory. In- 

 deed, as the races which evolved the highest degree of civiliza- 

 tion and culture indigenous to our continent have already van- 

 ished, so the birds of extremest specialization in this Subclass 

 have also disappeared. The Aztecs have vanished from Mexico, 

 and the gigantic, twelve-foot, ostrich-like Moas have gone for- 

 ever from the forests of Xew Zealand. 



The traditions of the Indians reach back seven or eight hun- 

 dred years ; while in tiie bodies and bones of the great running- 

 birds are hints which hark back millions of years. Indeed the 

 more we study this isolated group of birds, the more does their 

 origin become a mystery. Isolated they are, both in structure 

 and distribution, to a more remarkable extent than any other 

 group. Like Hatteria among reptiles, .\mphioxus among fishes, 

 and the lowly brachiopod mollusks, these birds are renniants of 



♦Especial care has been given to the preparation of tlie large general di scrip- 

 live labels of the species exhibited in the Ostrich House. .\ label is provided for 

 each group, giving a concise account of the bird's habits and characteristics, a 

 map of distribution and photographs or drawings of its nest and eggs, chicks, 

 wings, etc., to which is added a sp.'cimen of the acluai feather of the l>ird. 



