BIRDS. 
123 
eggs ; so that in one day’s hunting the third part found were in this state. 
It appears odd that so many should be wasted. Does it not arise from some 
difficulty in several females associating together, and in finding a male ready to 
undertake the office of incubation ? It is evident that there must at first be some 
degree of association, between at least two females ; otherwise the eggs would 
remain scattered at distances far too great to allow of the male collecting them 
into one nest. Some authors believe that the scattered eggs are deposited for the 
young birds to feed on. This can hardly be the case in America, because the 
huachos, although often found addled and putrid, are generally whole. 
2. Rhea Darwinii. Gould. 
Plate XLVII. 
Gould , in Proceedings of Zoological Soc. 1837, p. 35. 
R. pallide fusca , pluma singula distinct a semilunar i nota Candida terminata ; capite 
collo, femoribusque pallidioribus : rostri culmine augusti, ad apicem latiore, f routes 
plumis parvis setosis anticb directis et supra nares extensis ; tarsi latcribus in 
dimidiam partem plumis parvis mollibus tectis ; tarso f- antice posticeque toto, 
squamis reticulatis tecto. 
Long. tot. 52 unc. ; alee , 30; tarsi , 11 ; rostri, 2. 
The whole of the plumage light brown, each feather with a decided crescent- 
shaped mark of pure white at the extremity ; head, neck, and thighs lighter; 
base of the neck blackish; culmen of the bill narrow, becoming a little 
broader towards apex ; front with small bristly feathers, pointing forwards 
and reaching over the nostrils. Tarsus with small downy feathers on sides, 
extending half way downwards ; upper two-thirds of front of tarsus, and 
whole hinder side, with reticulated scales. 
Habitat, Eastern Patagonia (Lat. 40° S. to 54° S.) 
This species, which Mr. Gould, in briefly characterizing it at a meeting of 
the Zoological Society, has done me the honour of calling after my name, differs 
in many respects from the Rhea Americana. It is smaller, and the general tinge 
of the plumage is a light brown in place of grey; each feather being conspicuously 
tipped with white. The bill is considerably smaller, and especially less broad at 
its base ; the culmen is less than half as wide, and becomes slightly broader 
towards the apex, whereas in the R. Americana it becomes slightly narrower; the 
extremity, however, of both the upper and the lower mandible, is more tumid in 
the latter, than in the R. Darwinii. 
