females lay in one nest. [13] Although this habit at first appears very
strange, I think the cause may be explained in a simple manner. The
number of eggs in the nest varies from twenty to forty, and even to
fifty; and according to Azara, some times to seventy or eighty. Now,
although it is most probable, from the number of eggs found in one
district being so extraordinarily great in proportion to the parent
birds, and likewise from the state of the ovarium of the hen, that she
may in the course of the season lay a large number, yet the time
required must be very long. Azara states, [14] that a female in a
state of domestication laid seventeen eggs, each at the interval of
three days one from another. If the hen was obliged to hatch her own
eggs, before the last was laid the first probably would be addled; but
if each laid a few eggs at successive periods, in different nests, and
several hens, as is stated to be the case, combined together, then the
eggs in one collection would be nearly of the same age. If the number
of eggs in one of these nests is, as I believe, not greater on an
average than the number laid by one female in the season, then there
must be as many nests as females, and each cock bird will have its fair
share of the labour of incubation; and that during a period when the
females probably could not sit, from not having finished laying. [15] I
have before mentioned the great numbers of huachos, or deserted eggs;
so that in one day's hunting twenty were found in this state. It
appears odd that so many should be wasted. Does it not arise from the
difficulty of several females associating together, and 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 over the wide plain,
at distances far too great to allow of the male collecting them into
one nest: some authors have believed that the scattered eggs were
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.
When at the Rio Negro in Northern Patagonia, I repeatedly heard the
Gauchos talking of a very rare bird which they called Avestruz Petise.
They described it as being less than the common ostrich (which is there
abundant), but with a very close general resemblance. They said its
colour was dark and mottled, and that its legs were shorter, and
feathered lower down than those of the common ostrich. It is more
easily caught by the bolas than the other species. The few inhabitants
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