86 liAIIIA BLAXCA. [CHAP. v. 



ordinarily 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 interval 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 different 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 of the labour of incubation; and that during a 

 period when the females probably could not sit, from not having 

 finished laying.f I have before mentioned the great numbers of 

 huachos, or deserted eggs; so that in one day's hunting twenty 

 were found in this state. It appears odd that so many should be 

 wasted. Does it not arise from the difficulty of several females 

 associating together, and finding a male ready to undertake the 

 office of incubation ? It is evident that there must at first be some 

 degree of association between at least two females ; otherwise the 

 eggs would remain scattered over the wide plains, at distances far 

 too great to allow of the male collecting them into one nest : some 

 authors have believed that the scattered eggs were deposited for 

 the young birds to feed on. This can hardly be the case in 

 America, because the huachos, although often found addled and 

 putrid, arc generally whole. 



"When at the Kio Negro in Northern Patagonia, I repeatedly heard 

 the Gauchos talking of a very rare bird which they called Avestruz 

 Petise. They described it as being less than the common ostrich 

 (which is there abundant), but with a very close general resem- 

 blance. They said its colour was dark and mottled, and that its 

 legs were shorter, and feathered lower down than those of the 

 common ostrich. It is more easily caught by the bolas than the 



* Azara, vol. iv.-p. 173. 



t Lichtenstein, however, asserts (Travels, vol. ii. p. 25) that the hens 

 begin sitting when they have laid ten or twelve eggs ; and that they con- 

 tinue laying, I presume, in another nest. This appears to me very im- 

 probable. He asserts that four or five hens associate for incubation with 

 one cock, who sits only at night. 



