ORDER GRALL^. 431 



male for three or four females, which renders it highly pro- 

 bable that this male had fecundated them all. On the con- 

 trary supposition, that each male had remained faithful to his 

 companion, it is not at all likely that all the eggs would have 

 been thus deposited together, and the most we could expect 

 would be the establishment of separate nests, in the same 

 neighbourhood, as we have seen to be the case with some 

 monogamous birds, whose social instinct is powerful. Such 

 an approximation would be quite sufficient for the purposes 

 of mutual succour and protection of their offspring, to which 

 Levaillant is inclined to attribute the assemblage of which we 

 are speaking. If this traveller, who has often found nests con- 

 taining ten or a dozen eggs, only occasionally met with 

 some which contained too many eggs to belong to a single 

 female, it is more natural to conclude that nests are formed 

 by a single couple, in districts where the females are not more 

 numerous than the males, and that when the reverse is the 

 case, polygamy obtains among them. 



There is one fact, however, regarding which no uncertainty 

 exists, and which, it must be allowed, has more reference to 

 monogamy than to polygamy. The males sit on the eggs as 

 well as the females. The indefatigable naturalist, just cited, 

 has had opportunities of repeatedly verifying this fact, and 

 particularly in the case we have now related, when he beheld 

 the male come to the nest at the decline of day, and was lucky 

 enough to shoot him. Sparman has also seen a male ostrich 

 rise from the nest, and he found in the same nest as many 

 white as black feathers ; which announced the successive pre- 

 sence of the male and female. 



The season in which the ostriches breed is not very accu- 

 rately known. Sparman has seen young ones at different 

 epochs, whose size proved that they were born at different 

 times ; but on this subject Levaillant has made a very perti- 

 nent observation, namely, that though the reproductive season 



