Volume Ii Part 42 (1/2)
The call-note of the Martineta is never heard in winter; but in the month of September they begin to utter in the evening a long, plaintive, slightly modulated whistle, the birds sitting concealed and answering each other from bush to bush. As the season advances the coveys break up, and their call is then heard on every side, and often all day long, from dawn until after dark. The call varies greatly in different birds, from a single whistle to a performance of five or six notes, resembling that of _Rhynchotus_, but inferior in compa.s.s and sweetness. They begin to breed in October, making the nest in the midst of a small isolated bush. The eggs vary in number from twelve to sixteen; they are elliptical in form, of a beautiful deep green in colour, and have highly polished sh.e.l.ls.
It is probable, I think, that this species possesses some curious procreant habits, and that more than one female lays in each nest; but owing to the excessive wariness of the bird in a state of nature it is next to impossible to find out anything about it. No doubt the day will come when naturalists will find the advantage of domesticating the birds the life-histories of which they wish to learn: may it come before all the most interesting species on the globe are extinct!
Order XX. STRUTHIONES.
Fam. LIV. RHEIDae, or RHEAS.
The Order of Struthious Birds or Ostriches is represented in South America by the Nandu or Rhea, which is at once distinguished from the African Ostrich (_Struthio_) by having three toes instead of two, as also by many other important points of structure.
Both the known species of _Rhea_ are found within our limits.
433. RHEA AMERICANA, Lath.
(COMMON RHEA.)
+Rhea americana+, _Darwin, Zool. Voy. 'Beagle,'_ iii. p. 120; _Burm.
La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 500; _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 154; _Sclater, Trans. Zool. Soc._ iv. p. 355, pl. lxviii.; _Gadow, P.
Z. S._ 1885, p. 308.
_Description._--Above, head blackish; neck whitish, becoming black at the base of the neck and between the shoulders; rest slaty grey: beneath, throat and upper neck whitish, becoming black at the base of the neck, whence arise two black lateral crescents, one on either side of the upper breast; rest of under surface whitish; front of tarsus throughout covered with broad transverse scutes: whole length about 520 inches, tarsus 120; tarsus bare.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Head of _Rhea americana_. (P. Z. S. 1860, p. 208.)]
_Hab._ Pampas of S. America north of Rio Negro.
The Common Rhea (called ”_nandu_” in the Guarani language, ”_Chueke_” by the pampas Indians, and ”Ostrich” by Europeans) is found throughout the Argentine Republic down to the Rio Negro in Patagonia, and, in decreasing numbers, and a.s.sociating with Darwin's Rhea, to a considerable distance south of that river. Until within very recent times it was very abundant on the pampas, and I can remember the time when it was common within forty miles of Buenos Ayres city. But it is now becoming rare, and those who wish to have a hand in its extermination must go to a distance of three or four hundred miles from the Argentine capital before they can get a sight of it.
The Rhea is peculiarly well adapted, in its size, colour, faculties, and habits, to the conditions of the level woodless country it inhabits; its lofty stature, which greatly exceeded that of any of its enemies before the appearance of the European mounted hunter, enables it to see far; its dim grey plumage, the colour of the haze, made it almost invisible to the eye at a distance, the long neck being so slender and the bulky body so nearly on a level with the tall gra.s.ses; while its speed exceeded that of all other animals inhabiting the same country. When watching the chase of Ostriches in the desert pampas, abounding in giant gra.s.ses, it struck me forcibly that this manner of hunting the bird on horseback had brought to light a fault in the Rhea--a point in which the correspondence between the animal and its environment is not perfect.
The Rhea runs smoothly on the surface, and where the tall gra.s.s-tussocks are bound together, as is often the case, with slender twining plants, its legs occasionally get entangled, and the bird falls prostrate, and before it can struggle up again the hunter is close at hand and able to throw the _bolas_--the thong and b.a.l.l.s, which, striking the bird with great force, wind about its neck, wings, and legs, and prevent its escape. When I questioned Ostrich-hunters as to this point they said that it was true that the Rhea often falls when running hotly pursued through long gra.s.s, and that the deer (_Cervus campestris_) never falls because it leaps over the large tussocks and all such obstructions. This small infirmity of the Rhea would not, however, have told very much against it if some moderation had been observed in hunting it, or if the Argentine Government had thought fit to protect it; but in La Plata, as in North America and South Africa, the licence to kill, which every one possesses, has been exercised with such zeal and fury that in a very few more years this n.o.blest Avian type of the great bird-continent will be as unknown on the earth as the Moa and the _aepyornis_.
The Rhea lives in bands of from three or four to twenty or thirty individuals. Where they are not persecuted they show no fear of man, and come about the houses, and are as familiar and tame as domestic animals.
Sometimes they become too familiar. At one _estancia_ I remember an old c.o.c.k-bird that constantly came alone to feed near the gate, and that had so great an animosity against the human figure in petticoats, that the women of the house could not go out on foot or horseback without a man to defend them from its attacks. When the young are taken from the parent bird they become, as Azara truly says, ”domestic from the first day,” and will follow their owner about like a dog. It is this natural tameness, together with the majesty and quaint grace of its antique form, which makes the destruction of the Rhea so painful to think of.
When persecuted, Rheas soon acquire a wary habit, and escape by running almost before the enemy has caught a sight of them; or else crouch down to conceal themselves in the long gra.s.s; and it then becomes difficult to find them, as they lie close, and will not rise until almost trodden on. Their speed and endurance are so great that, with a fair start, it is almost impossible for the hunter to overtake them, however well mounted. When running, the wings hang down like those of a wounded bird, but usually one wing is raised and held up like a great sail, for what reason it is impossible to say. When hard pressed, the Rhea doubles frequently and rapidly at right angles to its course; and if the pursuer's horse is not well trained to follow the bird in all its sudden turns without losing ground he is quickly left far behind.
In the month of July the love-season begins, and it is then that the curious ventriloquial bellowing, booming, and wind-like sounds are emitted by the male. The young males in the flock are attacked and driven off by the old c.o.c.k-bird; and when there are two old males they fight for the hens. Their battles are conducted in a rather curious manner, the combatants twisting their long necks together like a couple of serpents, and then viciously biting at each other's heads with their beaks; meanwhile, they turn round and round in a circle, pounding the earth with their feet, so that where the soil is wet or soft they make a circular trench where they tread. The females of a flock all lay together in a natural depression in the ground, with nothing to shelter it from sight, each hen laying a dozen or more eggs. It is common to find from thirty to sixty eggs in a nest, but sometimes a larger number, and I have heard of a nest being found containing one hundred and twenty eggs. If the females are many the c.o.c.k usually becomes broody before they finish laying, and he then drives them with great fury away and begins to incubate. The hens then drop their eggs about on the plains; and from the large number of wasted eggs found it seems probable that more are dropped out of than in the nest. The egg when fresh is of a fine golden yellow, but this colour grows paler from day to day, and finally fades to a parchment-white.
After hatching, the young are a.s.siduously tended and watched over by the c.o.c.k, and it is then dangerous to approach the Rhea on horseback, as the bird with neck stretched out horizontally and outspread wings charges suddenly, making so huge and grotesque a figure that the tamest horse becomes ungovernable with terror.
Eagles and the large Polyborus are the enemies the Rhea most fears when the young are still small, and at the sight of one flying overhead he crouches down and utters a loud snorting cry, whereupon the scattered young birds run in the greatest terror to shelter themselves under his wings.
434. RHEA DARWINI, Gould.
(DARWIN'S RHEA.)