5174 The Zoologist — December, 1876. 



larger share than the female in bringing up the family ; collecting 

 together the eggs, which his spouse drops rather at random, and 

 either entirely incubates them, as do the emus, or as the ostrich 

 does, sits upon them at the most important time, viz., by night. 

 Mr. Halting has reproduced a very interesting and amusing account 

 of the nesting of the smaller emu of West Australia in this country, 

 which our readers may perhaps recollect appeared in the 'Zoologist' 

 for 1S63 and 1864. 



The ostrich used to range over a considerable portion of Central 

 Asia, but is becoming each year more rare, and has a more 

 restricted habitat. It is still found in some parts of Persia, in the 

 Lower Oxus, and in the deserts to the east of Damascus, but the 

 vast continent of Africa is to-day its chief home. Here it is hunted 

 for its feathers from Barbary to the Cape, and is found upon all 

 level plains suited to its habits. The finest birds, producing the 

 best feathers, are those which are obtained in the neighbourhood 

 of Timbuctoo. These feathers are exported from Tripoli, and are 

 so highly prized that they never appear at a public sale. The 

 Soulh-American rheas share with the ostrich the little-to-be-envied 

 privilege of being able to contribute towards the adornment of 

 beauty, and a war of extermination is being carried on against 

 them for the sake of their feathers. In 1874 sixty tons of feathers, 

 of the value of 132,689 dollars, were exported from the Argentine 

 Slates alone. It is calculated that between 300,000 and 400,000 

 rheas are slaughtered annually. One French firm received in 

 one year feathers worth X'48,000 from Banda Oriental, Entre 

 Rios and Buenos Ayres. We are not surprised to hear that 

 these noble birds are fast becoming scarce. Like the ostrich, 

 the rhea is easily domesticated, and has bred with Mr. Walter 

 Trevelyan at Shepton Mallet, in Somersetshire, and in a park near 

 Chippenham. 



The account furnished by M. de Mosenthal of the present pros- 

 pects of ostrich farming at the Cape Colony is most interesting. 

 It was felt that if the ostrich has to be hunted down and killed in 

 order to supply the demand for its beautiful feathers, the end must 

 soon come in its total extermination, and that the ostrich was too 

 noble and too valuable a bird for this fate to be permitted to over- 

 take it. Although for more than a hundred years the settlers at 

 the Cape had been in the habit of keeping domesticated ostriches, 

 there had been no attempt to rear them, or to make a business of 



