OCR Text |
Show 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 XL YII. Gould, in Proceedings of Zoological Soc. 1837, p. 35. R. pallide fusca, plumd singuld distinct a semilunari nota candida terminata ; capite collo, femoribusque pallidioribus: rostri culmine augusti, ad apicem latiore, fi·onles plumis parvis setosis antice directls et supra naTes extensis; tarsi lateribus in dimidian~ partem plumis pa1·vis mollibus tectis ; tarso !- antice posticeque toto, squamis 1·eticulatis tecto. Long. tot. 52 uno. ; alw, 30; tarsi, 11; t•ostri, 2. The whole of the plumage light brown, each feather with a decided crescentshaped 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 Rltea 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. |