V HABITS OF THE OSTRICH 95 



over the country. They lie either scattered and single, in which 

 case they are never hatched, and are called by the Spaniards 

 huachos ; or they are collected together into a shallow ex- 

 cavation, which forms the nest. Out of the four nests which I 

 saw, three contained twenty-two eggs each, and the fourth 

 twenty-seven. In one day's hunting on horseback sixty-four 

 eggs were found ; forty-four of these were in two nests, and 

 the remaining twenty, scattered huachos. The Gauchos 

 unanimously affirm, and there is no reason to doubt their 

 statement, that the male bird alone hatches the eggs, and for 

 some time afterwards accompanies the young. The cock when 

 on the nest lies very close ; I have myself almost ridden over 

 one. It is asserted that at such times they are occasionally 

 fierce, and even dangerous, and that they have been known to 

 attack a man on horseback, trying to kick and leap on him. 

 My informer pointed out to me an old man, whom he had 

 seen much terrified by one chasing him. I observe in 

 Burchell's Travels in South Africa that he remarks, 

 " Having killed a male ostrich, and the feathers being dirty, 

 it was said by the Hottentots to be a nest bird." I under- 

 stand that the male emu in the Zoological Gardens 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 watched 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 or more females lay in one nest.^ 

 Although 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, sometimes 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 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,^ that a female in a state of domestication laid seventeen 



' Burchell's Travels, vol. i. p. 280. 

 2 Azara, vol. iv, p. 173. 



