RHEA 785 



RHEA, the name given in 1752 by Mohring 1 to a South- 

 American bird which, though long before known and described by the 

 earlier writers Nieremberg, Marcgrave and Piso (the last of whom 

 has a recognizable but rude figure of it) had been without any 

 distinctive scientific appellation. Adopted a few years later by 

 Brisson, the name has since passed into general use, especially 

 among English authors, for what their predecessors had called the 

 American Ostrich ; but on the European continent the bird is com- 

 monly called Nandu, 2 a word corrupted from a name it is said to 

 have borne among the aboriginal inhabitants of Brazil, where the 

 Portuguese settlers called it Ema (cf. EMEU). The resemblance of 

 the Rhea to the OSTRICH was at once perceived, but the differences 

 between them were scarcely less soon noticed, for some of them are 

 very evident. The former, for instance, has three instead of two 

 toes on each foot, it has no apparent tail, nor the showy wing- 

 plumes of the latter, and its head and neck are clothed with feathers, 

 while internal distinctions of still deeper significance have since 

 been dwelt upon by Prof. Huxley (Proc. Zool Soc. 1867, pp. 420- 

 422) and the late Mr. W. A. Forbes (op. cit. 1881, pp. 784-787); 

 thus justifying the separation of these two forms more widely even 

 than as Families ; and there can be little doubt that they should be 

 regarded as types of as many Orders Struthiones and Hhese of the 

 Subclass RATIT^E. 3 Structural characters no less important separate 

 the Rheas from the Emeus, and, apart from their very different 

 physiognomy, the former can be readily recognized by the rounded 

 form of their contour-feathers, which want the AFTERSHAFT that in 

 the Emeus and CASSOWARIES is so long as to equal the main shaft, 

 and contributes to give these latter groups the appearance of being 

 covered with shaggy hair. Though the Rhea is not decked with 

 the graceful plumes which adorn the Ostrich, its feathers have yet 

 a considerable market-value, and for the purpose of trade in them 

 it is annually killed by thousands, so that it has been already 

 extirpated from much of the country it formerly inhabited, 4 and its 

 total extinction as a wild animal is probably only a question of 

 time. Its breeding -habits are precisely those which have been 



1 What prompted his bestowal of this name, so well known in classical 

 mythology, is not apparent. 



2 The name Touyou, also of South- American origin, was applied to it by 

 Brisson and others, but erroneously, as Cuvier shews, since by that name, or 

 something like it, the JABIKU is properly meant. 



3 Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, xx. p. 500. 



4 Mr. Harting, in his and Mr. De Mosenthal's Ostriches and Ostrich Farming, 

 from which the woodcut here introduced is by permission copied, gives (pp. 67-72) 

 some portentous statistics of the destruction of Rheas for the sake of their 

 feathers, which, he says, are known in the trade as "Vautour" to distinguish 

 them from those of the African bird. 



50 



