THE TRUE MEGAPODES. 173 



Habits. — Writing of this Megapode as observed in New 

 Britain, where it is especially numerous, Mr. E. L. Lay- 

 ard says: — "This bird is a perfect nuisance in Blanche 

 Bay, the whole place, both on the grassy fiats and bush- 

 covered hill-sides, being so undermined with their nesting- 

 holes that we were continually stumbling into them, not- 

 withstanding all our care in walking. Like domestic Fowls, 

 they lay indiscriminately in each other's nests. Some of these 

 are regular excavations, six or seven feet deep. Going shoot- 

 ing one day, I saw two flat white things moving in the mouth 

 of a small cavern by the side of the road. Upon closer in- 

 spection they proved to be the upturned soles of a native's 

 feet, their owner being head downwards, nearly six feet under- 

 ground. He presently emerged with five eggs, which I pur- 

 chased on the spot for a penny stick of tobacco. The con- 

 sumption of eggs by the ' Renard's ' thirty men was something 

 enormous, the price aloi^igside being six eggs for one stick of 

 tobacco. The birds were very numerous, and when flushed 

 took to the trees. . . . The great holes in the plain are 

 easily accounted for. A Megapode scratches a hole and buries 

 her egg ; a native comes along, rakes out the egg with his 

 hands, but does not fill the hole up again. Another bird lays 

 at the bottom of the excavation, and a native digs it out 

 again, until at length a perfect tunnel is formed in the soft 

 volcanic earth." 



According to Dr.O. Finsch : — " They seem to lay all the year 

 round, except in the rainy months, when eggs are very rare, 

 and for a short time not to be had at all. A year and a half 

 ago (in 1 881), forty eggs could be bought from the natives for 

 one stick of tobacco; now one gets only two. 



"Although Megapodius eremita is very common, one very 

 seldom gets a sight of it. It runs very quickly through the 

 jungle, or is seen only on the wing for a moment among the 

 foliage of the trees. The young ones, when hatched, arc 

 already able to fly. It is singular that among the numerous 



