6l6 BIRDS. 



and then drops it to erect the other, and holds it, for a while, in 

 the same strange position. Such is their velocity, that the savages 

 are obliged to lay snares in order to catch them ; for they are in 

 vain chaced by the swiftest dogs. 



The rhea shews the same indiscriminate voracity as the ostrich. 

 Like it, it devours stones, iron, and hard substances ; and, as this 

 is a quality peculiar to all the granivorous tribes, it is probable 

 that fruit, grain, and vegetable substances are the natural food o( 

 this bird. The fable told of the male compelling a number of fe- 

 males to lay in the same nest, and then charging himself with the 

 task of incubation, deserves no credit \ nor is the circumstance 

 less romantic of his separating from the nest two eggs, upon which 

 he does not sit, but allows to addle, that, by breaking them in 

 that state, he may collect insects to feed the young. It is proba- 

 ble that the eggs of the rhea, like those of the ostrich, are hatched 

 partly by the heat of the sun, and partly by incubation. The 

 young, says Wafer, when first excluded from the shell, are so fa- 

 miliar, that they follow the first person they meet; but, on grow. 

 ing older, they acquire experience, and become more shy and 

 suspicious. The flesh of the young rhea is reckoned good eating ; 

 and it might, perhaps, be improved, and rendered more abundant by 

 domestication, as has been that of the turkey or common hen, which, 

 like the rhea, are indigenous to the burning regions of the torrid 

 zone. The former, in particular, originally inhabited the same 

 tracts of the American continent. The bird defends itself with its 

 feet, and calls its young by a kind of hiss. 



3. Emen or Cassowary, 



Struthio-casuarius. Linn. 



Feet three-toed ; helmets and dew-laps naked. This bird in- 

 habits the torrid zone, and especially the island of Java, whence 

 it was first brought into Europe in 1 597. Its habitation begins in 

 those temperate climes, which are contiguous to the precincts of 

 the ostrich ; and, as it occupies a region more favourable to the 

 multiplication of the human race, its members are continually 

 decreasing in proportion to the increase of the number of its 

 destroyers. 



Next to the ostrich and rhea, the cassowaries are the largest 

 birds of the feathered race. They are of various sizes. The one 

 described by the Academy of Sciences in Paris was five feet and a 



