18/2.] UK. V. H. HUDSON ON PATAGONIAN BIRDS. 535 



A few facts I have been able to gatber in reference to them may 

 not prove uninteresting, as the R. darwini is but imperfectly 

 known. When hunted it frequently attempts to elude the sight by 

 suddenly squatting down amongst the bushes ; and when lying close 

 amid the grey-leaved bushes that cover the country it frequents, it 

 very easily escapes the sight. When hotly pursued, it possesses 

 the same remarkable habit as the R. americana of raising the wings 

 alternately and holding them erect ; it also manifests the same 

 facility for suddenly doubling, in order to avoid its pursuers. It 

 runs more swiftly than the common species, but is also more 

 quickly exhausted. When running, the R. americana carries the 

 neck erect or slightly sloping forward ; the R. darwini carries it 

 stretched forward almost horizontally, making it appear smaller 

 than it is. From this habit it is said to derive the vernacular name 

 of " Dwarf Ostrich." They go in flocks of from three or four to 

 thirty or more individuals. 1 have not been able to learn if the males 

 fight together as do those of the R. americana, or if they possess, 

 like that species, a call-note. The strange trumpeting cry of the 

 R. americana is often heard after they have been hunted and 

 scattered in all directions ; it is an indescribable sound, and resembles 

 somewhat the hollow heavy sigh with which a bull often ends his 

 bellowing, and appears to fill the air, so that it is impossible to tell 

 from which quarter it proceeds. The soft leisurely whistling notes 

 are the same in both species. The R. darwini begins to lay at the 

 end of July — that is, a mouth sooner than the R. americana ; in all 

 the breeding-habits of the two species there is a wonderful similarity. 



A number of females lay in one nest, the nest being merely a 

 slight depression lined with a little dry rubbish ; as many as fifty 

 eggs are sometimes found in one nest. But the R. darwini, as well as 

 the common species, lays many " huacko," or stray eggs, at a distance 

 from the nest. I inspected a number of eggs brought in by a 

 party of hunters, and was surprised at the great differences amongst 

 them in size, form, and colour. The average size of the eggs was 

 the same as those of the common species ; in shape they were more 

 or less oval or elliptical, scarcely two being found precisely alike. 

 When newly laid, the eggs are of a deep rich green, and the shell 

 possesses a fine polish. They very soon fade, however ; and first the 

 side exposed to the sun assumes a dull pale mottled green ; this 

 colour again changes to a yellowish, and again to a pale stone-blue, 

 becoming at last almost white. The comparative age of each egg in 

 the nest may be told by the colour of its shell. 



When the females have finished laying, the male sits on and 

 hatches the young. The young are hatched with the legs feathered 

 to the toes ; these feathers are not shed from the legs, but are gra- 

 dually worn off as the bird grows old by continual friction against 

 the stiff shrubs amid which they live. In adults usually a few 

 scattered feathers remain, often only the worn-down stumps of 

 feathers ; but I have been told by hunters that the old birds arc 

 sometimes caught with the legs entirely feathered, and that these 

 birds frequent plains where there was but little scrub. 



