NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. jxg 



moiind which was a foot in diameter. I endeavoiu-ed to glean from the 

 natives how the young effect thcii- escape ; but on this point they do 

 not agree, some asserting that they iind their way unaided ; others, on 

 tho contrary, affiinied tliat the old bii-d, knowing when the yoimg are 

 ready to emerge from their confinement, scratch down and release them. 

 ■' The natives say that only a single pair of birds is ever found at the 

 mound ,at one time ; and such, judging from my own observation, I 

 believe to be the case. They also affirm that the eggs are deposited at 

 night, at intervals of several days ; and tliis I also believe to be correct, 

 as four eggs, taken on the same day and from the same mounci, contained 

 young, in difl'erent stages of development; and the fact that they are 

 always placed pei-pendicvdarly is established by the concim-ing testintony 

 of all tho different tribes of natives I have questioned on the subject." 



The foUowing accovmt of the breeding pLaces of the remarkable 

 Megapodc was transmitted to Gould by Mr. John Macgillivray as the 

 result of his obsen'ations on Nogo or Megapodius Island, in Endeavour 

 Strait, and will also be read with interest : — " The most southern locality 

 known to me for this bird is Haggerston Island (in lat. 12 ' 3 ' south), 

 where I observed several of its moimds, of very laige size, but did not 

 see any of the birds. Dming the survey of Endcavoiu: Strait in 

 H.M.S. ' BKinible,' I was more fortunate, having succeeded in procuring 

 both male and female on, the island marked ' Nogo ' upon the chart, where 

 I resided several days for that sole purpose. On this small island, not 

 more than half a mile in length, rising at one extremity into a low, 

 roimded hiU, densely covered with jimgle (or what in New South Wales 

 would be called ' brush '), three mounds, one of them apparently deserted 

 before completion, were foimd. Tlie two others were examined by 

 Mr. Jukes and myself. The most recent, judging from the smoothness 

 of its sides and the want of vegetable matter, was situated upon the crest 

 of the Jiill, and measured eight feet in height (or thirteen and a half feet 

 from base of slope to summit), and seventy-seven feet in circumference. 

 In this mound, after several hours' hai'd digging into a well-packed mass 

 of earth, stones, decaying branches and leaves and other vegetable matter, 

 and the living roots of trees, we foimd numerous fragments of eggs, 

 besides one broken egg containing a dead and putrid chick, and another 

 whole one, which proved to be addled. All were embedded at a depth 

 of six feet from the nearest part of the siu'face, at which place the heat 

 produced by the fennentation of the mass was considerable. The egg, 

 3;^ inches by 2^ inches, wa.s dh-ty brown, covered with a kind of epidermis, 

 which easily chipped off, exposing a pure wliite surface beneath. Another 

 moimd, situated at the foot of the hill, close to the beach, measured no 

 less than 150 feet in circumference ; and to fomi this immense accumu- 

 lation of materials the ground in the vicinity had been scraped quite 

 bai'e by the birdSj and numerous shallow excavations pointed out whence 

 the materials had been derived. Its foiTn was an in'egular oval, the 

 flattened summit not being central as in the first instance, but situated 

 near* the larger end, which was elevated fourteen feet from the gi-ound, 

 the slope measuring in various directions, 18, 21J, and 24 feet. At 

 Port Lihou, in a small bav a few miles to the westward ; at Cape York, 

 and at Port Essington I foimd other mounds which were comparatively 



