540 MEG AP ODE 



and rotten wood.^ This habit attracted attention more than three 

 hundred years ago,^ but the accounts given of it by various 

 travellers were generally discredited by naturalists,^ and as examples 

 of the birds, probably from their unattractive plumage, appear not to 

 have been brought to Europe, no one of them was seen by any 

 ornithologist or scientifically described until near the end of the first 



^ Hence the name of Mound-birds given to them by some writers. 



- Antonio Pigafetta, one of the survivors of Magellan's glorious but disastrous 

 voyage, records in his journal, under date of April 1521, among the peculiarities 

 of the Philippine Islands, then first discovered by Em'opeans, the existence of a 

 bird there, about the size of a Fowl, which laid its eggs, as big as a Duck's, in 

 the sand, and left them to be hatched by the heat of the sun {Primo Viaggio 

 intorno al Globo, ed. Amoretti, Milano : 1800, p. 72 ; Fr. transl. Premier Voyage 

 autour du Monde, Paris : A.R. ix. p. 88). More than one hundred years later 

 the Jesuit Nieremberg, in his Historia Natitrez, published at Antwerp in 1635, 

 described (p. 207) a bird called "Dale," and by the natives named "Tapun," 

 not larger than a Dove, which, with its tail (!) and feet, excavated a nest in 

 sandy places and laid therein eggs bigger than those of a Goose. The publication 

 at Rome in 1 651 of Hernandez's Hist. Avium Norm Hispaniee shews that his papers 

 must have been accessible to Nieremberg, who took from them the passage just 

 mentioned, but, as not unusual with him, misprinted the names which stand in 

 Hernandez's work (p. 56, cap. 220) "Daic," and " Tapum " respectively, and 

 omitted his predecessor's important addition " Viuit in PhHippicis." Not long 

 after, the Dominican Favarrete, a missionary to China, made a considerable 

 stay in the Philippines, and returning to Eui'ope in 1673 wrote an account of 

 the Chinese empire, of which Churchill {Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i. ) 

 gave an English translation in 1704. It is therein stated (p. 45) that in many 

 of the islands of the Malay Archipelago "there is a very singular bird call'd 

 Talon," and that " What I and many more admire is, that it being no bigger in 

 Body than an ordinary Chicken, tho' long legg'd, yet it lays an egg larger than 

 a Gooses, so that the egg is bigger than the bird itself. ... In order to lay its 

 Eggs, it digs in the Sand above a yard in depth ; after laying, it fills up the 

 hole and makes it even with the rest ; there the Eggs hatch with the heat of the 

 Sun and Sand." He adds further information which need not be quoted here. 

 Gemelli Careri, who travelled from 1663 to 1699, and in the latter year published 

 an account of his voyage round the world, gives similar evidence respecting this 

 remarkable bird, which he calls " Tavon," in the Philippine Islands ( Voy. du tour 

 du Monde, ed. Paris : 1727, v. pp. 157, 158). The Megapode of Luzon is fairly 

 described by Camel or CamelH in his observations on the Birds of the Philippines 

 communicated by Petiver to the Royal Society in 1703 (Phil. Trans, xxiii. p. 

 1398). In 1726 Valentyn published his elaborate work on the East Indies, 

 wherein (deel iii. bk. v. chap. ii. p. 320) he very correctly describes the Megapode 

 of Amboina under the name of Moeleoe or Malleoe, and also a larger kind found 

 in Celebes, so as to shew he had in the course of his long residence in the Dutch 

 ' settlements become personally acquainted with both. 



3 Thus WUlughby {Ornithologia, p. 297), or Ray for him, who had, however 

 only Nieremberg's evidence to cite, and they can scarcely be blamed for their 

 hesitation, considering the number of other marvels narrated by the same worthy 

 father. Buffon also {Oiseaux, ix. p. 436) was just as sceptical in regard to tlie 

 relation of Careri. 



