Aug. 1833. HABITS OF OSTRICH. 107 



male emu, in the Zoological Garden, takes charge of the 

 nest : this habit, therefore, is common to the family. 



The Gauchos unanimously affirm that several females lay 

 in one nest. I have been positively told, that four or five 

 hen birds have been seen to go, in the middle of the day, one 

 after the other, to the same nest. I may add, also, that it is 

 believed in Africa, that two females lay in one nest.* Al- 

 though this habit at first appears very strange, I think the 

 cause may be explained in a simple manner. The number 

 of eggs in the nest varies from twenty to forty, and even to 

 fifty; and according to Azara to seventy or eighty. Now 

 although it is most probable, from the number of eggs found 

 in one district being so extraordinarily great, in proportion to 

 that of the parent birds, and likewise from the state of the 

 ovarium of the hen, that she may in the course of the season 

 lay a large number, yet the time required must be very long. 

 Azara states,t that a female in a state of domestication laid 

 seventeen eggs, each at the interval of three days one from 

 another. If the hen were obliged to hatch her own eggs, 

 before the last was laid the first probably would be 

 addled; but if each laid a few eggs at successive periods, 

 in different nests, and several hens, as is stated to be 

 the case, combined together, then the eggs in one collection 

 would be nearly of the same age. If the number of eggs 

 in one of these nests is, as I believe, not greater on an 

 average than the number laid by one female in the sea- 

 son, then there must be as many nests as females, and each 

 cock bird will have its fair share of the labour of incuba- 

 tion ; and that dinging a period when the females could not 

 sit, on account of not having finished laying. I have before 

 mentioned the great numbers of huachos, or scattered eggs ; 

 so that in one day^s hunting the third part were found in this 

 state. It appears odd that so many should be wasted. Does 

 it not arise from the difficulty of several females associating 

 together, and persuading an old cock to imdertake the office 



* Burchell's Travels, vol. i., p. 280. f Azara, vol. iv., p. 173. 



