56 ° 
FLIGHTLESS BIRDS. 
In addition to the methods noticed, the bushmen have also recourse to the plan of 
concealing one of their number in the sand of a nest, after the removal of the eggs, 
and by him the birds on their return are shot down with poisoned arrows. 
The Rheas or American Ostriches. 
Family RHEIDsE. 
In South America the place of the ostriches is taken by an allied group of 
birds known as rheas, or, as they are often termed, American ostriches, which are 
distinguished externally by the presence of three toes, furnished with claws 
instead of nails, and by the fully-featliered head and neck, and the absence of a tail. 
The wings also are proportionately longer, and are covered with long, slender 
plumes. Agreeing with the ostriches in the absence of after-shafts to the feathers, 
in their pale-coloured eggs, and in the superiority in size of the male over the 
female, the rheas are further distinguished by certain peculiarities in regard to the 
bones at the base of the skull, and likewise by the circumstance that the ischia, or 
hinder lower bones of 
the pelvis, meet in a 
symphysis in the middle 
line, instead of the pubes 
doing so. The flattened 
beak is broad at the base 
and rounded at the tip, 
where it has a curved 
nail-like sheath; and the 
extremity of the wing 
has a horny process. The 
lores and region round 
the eye, as well as a ring 
round the aperture of the 
ear, are devoidof feathers, 
the ear aperture being 
clothed with bristles. 
On the head and neck 
the feathers are small, thin, and pointed; while those of the body are large, 
broad, and rounded, although so soft that no distinct vanes are formed. In 
coloration the two sexes are very similar, although the female is generally 
somewhat paler than her consort. The best known, and at the same time the most 
abundant, of the three species by which the single genus is now represented, 
is the common rhea (Rhea americana), inhabiting the pampas of Argentina and 
Patagonia. This species is far inferior in size to the ostrich, but it is the 
largest of the three. Black on the crown of the head and nape, as well as on 
portions of the upper neck and the fore-breast, with yellow and bluish grey on 
the sides and other parts of the neck, the general colour of the plumage on the 
back, sides of the breast, and wings, is brownish ashy grey in the cock ; while the 
HEAD OF COMMON RHEA. 
(From Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc., I860.) 
