6g8 NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



ORDER— QALLIN/E: QAME=B1RD5. 

 Sub=order — Peristeropodes. 



FAMILY— MEGAPODIID^ : MEGAPODES. 



557.^LiPOA ocELLATA, Gould. — (477) 

 MALLEE FOWL. 



Figure. — Gould : Birds of Australia, fol., vol. v., pi. 78. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xxii., p. 463. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs.— Gould : Birds of Australia (1848) i 

 also Handbook, vol. ii., p. 163 (1S65) ; Bennett : Proc. Linn. 

 Soc, N.S. Wales, vol. viii., p. 1S3 (1883); Campbell: 

 Victorian Naturalist (1884), also Geelong Naturalist (1898); 

 North : Austn. Mus. Cat., p. 281 (1889) ; *Le Souef : Ibis, 

 p. 12 (1899). 



Geographical Distribution. — New South Wales, Victoria, Soutli 

 aud West Australia. 



Nest. — A large conical-.shaped heap or mound of sand, &c., covering 

 a bed of leaves and other vegetable debris about eight inches in thick- 

 ness; usually situated in a water track in the dense scrub of sandy 

 tracts, or in reddish ironstone gravel country, such as the Mallee 

 (so named from a species of dwarf eucalyptus which grows there), &c. 

 Dimensions, 10 to 12 feet in diameter at base, or a circumference 30 to 

 40 feet, and height 2 to 4 feet. 



Eggs. — Clutch, twelve to eighteen— other authors seven to eight ; long 

 oval in shape or elhptically inclined ; texture coarse but shell exceedingly 

 tliin ; surface without gloss ; coloiu-, when first laid, hght-pink or pinkish- 

 buff, which on being scratched or removed shows a yellowish-buff ground ; 

 this in tiu'n, as incubation proceeds, cliips off in patches and reveals a 

 whitish shell. Dimensions in inches of four eggs from the same moimd : 

 (1) 3-73 X 2-35, (2) 3-7 x 2-42, (3) 3-52 x 2-2G, (4) 3-44 x 2-26. (Plate 18.) 



Observations. — The mound-raising birds are the ornithological 

 curiosities not only of Australia but of the world. 



This remarkable and truly sohtiiry Lipoa dwells in the chier and 

 more arid scrubs of Southern Australia generally, being particularly 

 partial to the Mallee (a dwarf species of eucalypt) tracts, hence the 

 vernacular title Mallee Hen. 



The Lipoa resembles very much in shape and size a greyish-mottled 

 domestic Turkey, but is slightly smaller, more compact, and stouter 

 in the legs. It has no wattles about its head, but has a small tuft of 

 feathers falling gracefully back from the crown. 



In Western Australia the Lipoa ha.s its most iiortlicrly range 

 apparently just above the tropical line, the Calvert Expedition having 



* No dimensions given. 



