£92 
AMERICAN 
RHEA. 
DescriPT10Ne 
R HSE A. 
Genus LXIll RHEA. 
ILL itrait, deprefled, fomewhat rounded at the tip. 
Wines ufelefs for flight. 
Lower part of the THIGHs bare of feathers. 
Lecs furnifhed with three toes forward, and a knob behind inftead 
of a back toe. 
Rhea Americana, Ind. Orn. ii. p. 665. 16 
Le Chenque, Molin. Chil. (Fr. ed.) p. 2416 
Nhanduguacu, Wil). Orn. 150. § II. 
American Oftrich, Encycl. Brit. xvi. p. 205. pl. 437.-—-Nat. Mi/e. pl. 
72.—=Gen, Syn. V. p. 23 *e 
HIS bird, notwithftanding it is fufficiently common in the 
fouthern parts of America, has fo far efcaped the refearches even 
of later naturalifts, as to render it at beft but an obfcure fpecies. The 
defcription in Willughby is not amifs, but although Faulkner, Wallis, 
and other voyagers faw them in the greateft plenty in Patagonia, it 
fo happened, that a full grown fpecimen has never to our knowledge 
been brought to England. The author who has moft noticed it is 
Molina, who, in his hiftory of Chili, defcribes it nearly thus: it is 
rather lefs than the common Ofrich; when ftanding, the head is 
elevated from the ground about the height of a man: the neck 1s two 
feet eight inches long: the head fmall, rounded, and covered with 
feathers: eyes black; eyelids fupplied with eye-lafhes: the bill fhore 
and broad, not unlike that of a Duck: legs the length of the neck, 
furnifhed 
Ad. 
