FEMINISM A FAILURE 115 



chicks, the other hunted for food, so the co-operation 

 was perfect. 



In many species, however, one sex does everything 

 or nearly so, and this is generally the female, as 

 remarked above, but extra- fatherly male birds 

 occur, which take over all the ordinarily feminine 

 duties. These comprise nearly all the " Ratite " 

 or primitive flightless birds — the Emu, Casso- 

 waries, Rheas, and Kiwis or Apteryxes, but not 

 the true Ostrich ; the Partridge-like Tinamous of 

 South America, which, although flyers, are really 

 " ratites " by anatomical structure, with the excep- 

 tion of the keel on the breast-bone ; the Hemipodes 

 or Button-Quails, and the little Coot-footed Sand- 

 pipers or Phalaropes. 



It will be noticed that although some of these 

 birds are enormous in size, none are remarkable in 

 any other way, so that the inference is pretty plain 

 that feminism in the bird world, though quite a 

 workable arrangement for reproducing the species, 

 is not the way to produce a high type of birds, the 

 great " runners " being merely lumbering 'degener- 

 ates except the one which has resisted feminism, 

 the true Ostrich, which is a magnificent creature 

 in his way, and holds his own in a region fuU of 

 formidable mammals, both carnivores and herbi- 

 vores. 



The so-called American Ostrich, the Rhea, seems 

 to have got into a curious mixture of roles in his 

 family affairs ; unlike the Emu and Cassowaries, 

 in which the males are purely feminine in char- 



