.82 HUNTING EXTINCT ANIMALS 



flocks of two to ten in number. When flushed, they seldom 

 rise but run and hide behind the bushes, usually escaping 

 in that way; but if followed up they then rise noisily and 

 fly a hundred feet or so, being rather weak on the wing. 

 They are of especial interest because in their relationships 

 they are intermediate between our northern game birds 

 and the ostriches (both rheas and African ostriches). The 

 nest was simply a depression in the ground under a pro- 

 tecting bush, and contained ten dark green, thick-shelled 

 eggs, which I tucked into the front of my shirt, and which 

 were later made into johnny cakes. 



It was a good deal after dark when I rode in, and found 

 Billy just pulling the saddle off his horse. He had had the 

 same sort of day as I ; fine exposures everywhere but no 

 fossils. While we were away Turner had gone to the near- 

 est ranches to try and get more burlap or any cloth to 

 be used for bandaging our specimens, as the twenty-five 

 yards we had brought was gone. He brought in very little, 

 so we dedicated Billy's coat, Shumway's pajamas. Turner's 

 towels, and one of my blankets to the continuing of the 

 work and made plans to finish up by Wednesday night. 



Monday noon, Shumway reported a curious lead, which 

 he wished passed upon to see if it were worth taking out. 

 It appeared to be a rib, but soon developed into a skull, 

 and when we got to the teeth, proved to be the almost 

 unknown Pyrotherium which Ameghino had found and 

 claimed was a member of the elephant family. As we 

 worked the specimen grew, until we had uncovered a skull 

 thirty-eight inches long, with tusks in the upper jaw fully 

 ten inches in length. Near by we found the lower jaws 

 each with an eight-inch tusk in front. The dentition 

 certainly did look like that of the early elephants. The 

 skull suggests the ancestral elephants found in the Eocene 

 beds of the Fayum desert in Egypt, though the teeth are 

 much more advanced in their development. The very 

 short neck-vertebrse were also with the skull, and scattered 



