THE TRUE IMEGAPODKS. I 77 



close confinement, and effected its escape on the third day. 

 During the period it remained in captivity it was incessantly 

 occupied in scratching up the sand into heaps ; and the 

 rapidity with which it threw the sand from one end of the 

 box to the other was quite surprising for so young and small 

 a bird, its size not being larger than that of a small Quail. At 

 night it was so restless that I was constantly kept awake by the 

 noise it made in its endeavours to escape. In scratching up 

 the sand it only used one foot, and having grasped a handful^ 

 as it were, the sand was thrown behind it, with but little 

 apparent exertion, and without shifting its standing position on 

 the other leg. . . . 



" I continued to receive the eggs without having an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing them taken from the mound until the 6th of 

 February, when on again visiting Knocker's Bay I had the 

 gratification of seeing two taken from a depth of six feet in 

 one of the largest mounds I had then seen. In this instance 

 the holes ran down in an oblique direction from the centre to- 

 wards the outer slope of the hillock, so that, although the eggs 

 were six feet deep from the summit, they were only two feet 

 deep from the side. The birds are said to lay but a single egg 

 in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth is imme- 

 diately thrown in lightly until the hole is filled up; the upper part 

 of the mound is then smoothed and rounded over. It is easily 

 known when a Megapode has been recently excavating, from 

 the distinct impressions of its feet on the top and sides of the 

 mound, and the earth being so lighdy thrown over, that with a 

 slender stick the direction of the hole is readily detected, the 

 ease or difficulty of thrusting the stick down indicating the 

 length of time that may have elapsed since the bird's opera- 

 tions. . . 



"I revisited Knocker's Bay o;i the loth of February, and 

 having with some difficulty penetrated into a dense thicket of 

 cane-like, creeping plants I suddenly found myself beside a 

 mound of gigantic proportions. It was fifteen feet in height and 



12 N 



