THE AMERICAN RHEA. 
Rhea americana. 
Plate XLII. 
In the Pampas of South America the place of the Ostrich (which is entirely confined to Africa and the most 
nearly adjoining districts of Western Asia), is taken by the birds called Nandus, or Rheas, of which three 
different species are now known to exist. Though generally much resembling the African Ostriches, these 
birds, as is usually, we may say almost invariably, the case with American representatives of types belonging 
to the Old World, are inferior in size and weaker in form, and may further be immediately distinguished by 
the presence of an additional toe; the true Ostriches only possessing two toes to each foot. 
The Zoological Society’s series of living Struthious Birds — the order which includes the Ostriches and 
Rheas, as well as the Cassowaries and Emeus, and their celebrated allies the Apteryges, or wingless birds of 
New Zealand—is one of the most complete portions of their extensive collection of living animals. Besides 
several specimens of the Common Rhea of different ages and of each sex, the series embraces a fine male of 
the Darwin’s Rhea—believed to be the first example of this bird brought living to Europe, and the only 
known specimen of a third smaller species, which has lately been distinguished from the two former, and 
described in the Society’s “Proceedings” as the Long-billed Rhea (Rhea macrorhyncha.)* 
The American Rhea frequently lays eggs in captivity. On several occasions these have been hatched in 
the artificial incubator kept in the Society’s Gardens, and the young birds reared. At the present time 
(February, 1861), we have a young American Rhea, hatched in the Gardens last summer, from an egg laid 
by a bird in the possession of Augustus Smith, Esq., M.P., which bids fair to do well. Its companion, born 
at the same time, and carefully nurtured during several months by a Cochin-China hen (the sudden death of 
which caused no small grief to its foster-children), perished from an accident which not unfrequently happens 
to young Struthious birds bred in captivity. Their bones, owing to some defect in the system of feeding, which 
we have not yet been able to remedy, do not become sufficiently ossified, and a sudden turn of the birds 
when running, is apt to produce a compound fracture of the legs, from which recovery is scarcely possible. 
Mr. Wolf’s drawing contains a group of these intei’esting little Struthionidce, as they might appear in their 
native Pampas, and gives an accurate representation of the immature dress of this Rhea. The old hen is in 
the background, and her mate not very far off. 
* See the “Proceedings” of the Society for 1860, p. 207, and the “Transactions,” vol. iv., part 7. 
