NICOBAR MEGAPODE 275 



The bird itself is about as big as a jungle hen, and has the 

 sides of the head red and bare like a fowl's, but its very short 

 tail gives it rather the appearance of a guinea-fowl. Its 

 plumage is unique among our game-birds by its very dulness, 

 there being not a single streak or spot to relieve its monotony of 

 snuffy-brown. The sexes are alike, and even the chicks hardly 

 differ except by having downy heads. It is about all they do 

 have downy, for they come out of the egg full-fledged, as is the 

 usual custom of birds of the megapode family; their habits are 

 well known in Australia, where not only a similar bird to this, 

 locally called "jungle-fowl," but others of more distinct and 

 handsome appearance, the "brush-turkey " (Catheturus lathami), 

 and " mallee-bird " (Leipoa ocellata) are found. The type, 

 indeed, is an Australian one, but the typical Megapodius group 

 ranges east and west among the islands, ours being the farthest 

 outlier to the westward. 



The foot of the megapode has the hind-toe well developed, 

 and furnished, like all the other toes, with a long, strong claw. 

 It is thus better fitted for grasping than that of our other game- 

 birds, and this power is employed by the bird in throwing up the 

 great mounds in which its eggs are to be buried, for another 

 queer habit of the family is to construct natural incubators for 

 their eggs, which are of extraordinary size, in this species being 

 as big as those of a goose, while the bird itself averages about a 

 pound and a half in weight. Fresh eggs are ruddy pink, but 

 they fade to buff as incubation advances, and also show white 

 spots and streaks, caused by the colour, which is only a thin 

 surface coating, getting chipped or scratched off. 



The mounds are almost invariably situated just where the 

 jungle abuts on the coral beach, not in the open, and very 

 rarely back in the forest. Forest mounds are necessarily made 

 of leaves and sticks mixed with earth ; but evidently the proper 

 compost, from the birds' point of view, is the coral sand of the 

 beach, raked in a layer about a foot thick over a liberal founda- 

 tion of leaves, cocoanut husks, and any sort of vegetable matter 

 that these birds can lay their claws on. The same mounds are 

 used again and again, the birds apparently scraping the top- 

 dressing of sand off every now and then, putting on more 

 vegetable refuse, and then raking the sand over again. 



