The group from the resemblance of its palatal characters to those of the Emeu, Dromaeus, he called Dromaeognathae, but it is now more usual to place them in a separate order, the Tinamiformes.
The young are hatched ' Yet Forbes states (Ibis, 1881, p. 358) that Seriema comes from Siri, " a diminutive of Indian extraction," and Ema, the Portuguese name for the Rhea (see Emeu), the whole thus meaning "Little Rhea."
The trachea or windpipe is strengthened by numerous cartilaginous, often osseous, complete rings, but in the emeu several of these rings are incomplete in the medioventral line, and permit the inner lining of the trachea to bulge out into a large neck-pouch, which is used by both sexes as a resounding bag.
The Ratitae are represented by two species of emeu (Dromaeus), besides the cassowary of Cape York peninsula, and the extinct Dromornis and Genyornis with its enormous skull.
Brisson, the name has since passed into general use, especially among English authors, for what their predecessors had called the American ostrich; but on the European continent the bird is commonly called Nandu,2 a word corrupted from a name it is said to have borne among the aboriginal inhabitants of Brazil, where the Portuguese settlers called it ema (see Emeu).