Mound-building Birds of Australia. 13 



the sand then gets in, and, mixing with the contents, forms, 

 when dry, a compact sandy mass, completely filling the shell ; 

 on one occasion I found five such eggs in one mound. 



There has been much discussion as to whether the young 

 birds can make their own way out of the soil unaided by 

 their parents. In order to settle it I covered in with wire 

 netting a nest with several eggs in it, so that tlie parents 

 could not open it up, and found all the chickens, when they 

 came to maturity, dead in their shells. Then again, on 

 taking the eggs from a nest, you often find chickens in their 

 eggs which are ready to hatch, especially in the lower tier ; 

 so much so that, when opening the egg, you have to hold the 

 young bird firmly to prevent it from escaping and running 

 away. Then on other occasions you find chickens near the 

 surface under the sand, apparently working their way out 

 unaided. The old birds open up the nest to a certain extent 

 daily at daybreak, and it is probable that any chickens that 

 may be ready to come out, especially in the lower tiers, do so 

 then. Moving the sand also prevents it from becoming set. 

 But the chickens that hatch from the eggs of the top tier, 

 the sand there not being set so tightly and being drier and 

 running more freely, are able to force their own way out, 

 and, judging from the experiments I have made, I should 

 say this w^as usually the case. On opening up the nest that 

 had been wired in, I found that the sand had set rather tight, 

 especially where the eggs were, and this I should say fully 

 accounted for the young birds being unable to come out. 



When the mound is opened up during the day and eggs 

 abstracted, the parent birds repair the mound shortly after 

 the intruder has gone away, showing that either one or other 

 of the birds generally remains in the neighbourhood. 



When the young are hatched they are well able to take 

 care of themselves, being strong and well developed, and 

 their wing-feathers sufficiently formed to enable them to fly 

 a short distance; but they trust almost entirely to their 

 running and hiding to escape danger, and to catch a newly- 

 hatched young one in the scrub is no easy matter. The 

 parent birds seem to take very little notice of their young. 



