This appears to me very improbable.

He asserts that four or five hens associate for incubation with one cock, who sits only at night.) 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 plains, 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.