AVES—AMERICAN OSTRICH. 615 
Ostriches are sometimes bred in flocks, for they are easily tamed. In this 
domesticated state they play and frisk about with viracity, and are tractable 
and familiar towards those who are acquainted with them. To strangers, 
however, they are often fierce, and will attack them with fury, making an 
angry hissing noise, and having their throats inflated, and their mouths 
open. During the night they frequently utter a discordant cry, whicn pears 
a resemblance to the distant roaring of a lion, or the hoarse tone of a bear 
or an ox when in great agony. 
THE TOUMOU; ORSAMERIT CAN OSTRICH: 
Ir is chiefly found in Guiana, along the banks of the Oroonoko, in the 
inland provinces of Brazil and Chili, and the vast forests that border on the 
mouth of the river Plata. Many other parts of South America were known 
to have them; but as man multiplied, these large and timorous birds either 
fell beneath their superior power, or fled from their vicinity. It is said to be 
found in Patagonia, and the natives are represented as chasing it on horse- 
back, and killing it with clubs when they approach sufficiently near. 
The touyou, -though not so large as the ostrich, is only second to it in 
magnitude. It is by much the largest bird in the New Continent, and is 
genera!ly found to be six feet high, measuring from its head to the ground. 
Its legs are three feet long. Its body is of an oval form, and appears entirely 
round. It is covered fromthe back and rump with long feathers; these 
feathers are gray upon the back, and white on the belly, and it has no other 
tail. It goes very swiftly, and seems assisted in its motion by a kind of 
tubercle behind, like a heel, upon which, on plain ground, it treads very 
securely ; in its course it uses a very odd kind of action, lifting up one wing, 
which it keeps elevated for a time; till letting it drop, it lifts up the other; 
it runs with such swiftness, that the fleetest dogs are sometimes thrown out 
in the pursuit. One of them, finding itself surrounded by the hunters, dart- 
ed among the dogs with such fury, that they made way to avoid its rage, 
and it escaped, by its amazing velocity, in safety to the mountains. It dee 
fends itself with its feet, and calls its young by a kind of hiss. 
Nieremberg relates, that, during incubation, they generally make a false 
nest at some distance from the true one; in this they lay two eggs, which 
are afterwards broken by the old bird, and by attracting a number of flies, 
1 Rhea Americana, Temm. This is the only one of the genus. Its characteristics are 
a bill straight, short, soft, depressed at the base, a little compressed at the tip, which is 
obtuse ; lower mandible much depressed, flexible, and rounded at the tip; nostrils on the 
lateral surface of the »ill, large, longitudinally cleft and open; legs long, with three toes 
before and a callosity tehind; wings short, with feathers more or less strong, and termy- 
hating in a spur. 
