222 AVES— ORDER STRUTHIONIFORMES—THE OSTRICHES. 



nnd the most widely distributed, being found from Southern Brazil and 

 Paraguay to the province of Matagrosso, westwards to Bolivia, south to the 

 Rio Negro in Patagonia, and even beyond. In the provinces of Bahia and 

 Pernambuco it is replaced by the great-billed rhea {R. macrorhyncha), and 

 in Chili and Patagonia by Darwin's rhea {R. darwini), which is said to range 

 north of the Rio Negro, where it may be coterminous with the range of S. 

 americcnta. 



The nandu, as the rhea is called in Argentina, is, according to Mr. W. H. 

 Hudson, doomed to speedy extinction, the republican governments of South 

 America apparently being too much occupied in other business to trouble 

 their heads about bird protection, which appears to be only an outcome of 

 extreme civilisation. Mr. Hudson, the recorder of so much that is interest- 

 ing in the habits of the birds of Argentina, has given the results of his 

 acquaintance with the rhea, and we regret that space forbids us 

 to quote more than a brief extract. It seems that the male takes upon him- 

 self the duties of incubation, and Mr. Hudson's story is as follows : — " In the 

 month of July the love season begins, and it is then that the curious 

 ventriloquial bellowing, booming, and weird-like sounds are emitted by the 

 male. The young males in the flock are attacked and driven off by 

 the old cock-bird ; and when there are two old males, they fight for 

 hens. Their battles are conducted in a curious manner, the com- 

 batants twisting their long necks together like a couple of serpents, 

 and then viciously biting at each others' heads with their beaks ; mean- 

 while, they turn round and round in a circle, pounding the earth with 

 their feet, so that where the soil is wet or soft, they make a circular 

 trench where they tread. The females of a flock all lay together in a natural 

 depression of the ground, with nothing to shelter it from sight, each hen 

 laying a dozen, or more, eggs. It is common to find from thirty to sixty 

 eggs in a nest, but sometimes a, larger number, and I have heard of a nest 

 being found containing one hundred and twenty eggs. If the females are 

 many, the cock usually becomes broody before they finish laying, and he 

 then drives them away with great fury, and begins to incubate. The hens 

 then drop their eggs about the plains ; and from the large number of. wasted 

 eggs found, it seems probable that more are dropped out of, than in, the nest. 

 The egg when fresh is of a fine golden yellow, but this colour grows paler 

 from day to day, and finally fade» to a parchment-white. 



" After hatching, the young are assiduously tended and watched over by the 

 cock, and it is then dangerous to approach the rhea on horseback, as the bird, 

 with neck outstretched and outspread wings, charges suddenly, making so huge 

 and grotesque a figure that the tamest horse becomes ungovernable through 

 terror. Eagles and the large caracara are the enemies which the rhea most 

 fears when the young are still small ; and at the sight of one flying overhead, 

 lie crouches down and utters a loud, snorting cry, whereupon the scattered 

 young birds run in the greatest terror to shelter themselves under his 

 wings." 



Although at present only to be found in Africa and Arabia, there is no doubt 



that in former times the range of the ostrich was much more extensive. It 



is now practically extinct in Mesopotamia and in Syria, but. 



The Ostricli. according to Mr. Lydekker, fossil remains of an ostrich have 

 been found in North Western India, while an egg, supposed 

 to belong to one of these birds, has been dcscMbed from Southern Russia. 



Three species of ostrich are recognised in Africa, of which the common one, 



