The South American Ostrich. 51 



which can hardly be imagined without having been 

 seen, become, on this view, of obvious service, instead 

 of being an incumbrance ; their apparent clumsiness 

 disappears. With their great tails and their huge 

 heels firmly fixed like a tripod on the ground, they 

 could freely exert the full force of their most power- 

 ful arms and great claws. Strongly rooted, indeed, 

 must that tree have been which could have resisted 

 such force ! The mylodon, however, was furnished 

 with a long extensile tongue like that of the giraffe, 

 which, by one of those beautiful provisions of nature, 

 thus reaches, with the aid of its long neck, its leafy 

 food. I may remark, that in Abyssinia the elephant, 

 according to Bruce, when it cannot reach with its 

 proboscis the branches, deeply scores with its tusks 

 the trunk of the tree, up and down and all around, 

 till it is sufficiently weakened to be broken down." 



Darwin was particularly interested in the rhea or 

 South American ostrich, and was the first to give a 

 careful account of its habits. As we have seen in a 

 previous chapter, he followed it on horseback, racing 

 with the huge bird in sport, watching it at once 

 with the eye of a naturalist and sportsman. The 

 rhea he found, though living upon grasses and tender 

 roots, by no means confined itself to this diet, as one 

 day while lying in concealment at Bahia Blanca he 

 saw a number come down to the mud flats and feed 

 there, obtaining, according to the Gauchos, small fish ; 

 and that they take to the water readily he was con- 

 vinced on a later occasion by observing several swim 

 the Santa Cruz River, which was at least four hun- 

 dred yards wide, with a rapid current. In swimming, 



