30 Transactions. — Miscellaneoiis. 



deeply as 2ft. from the surface, and are hatched by the 

 natural heat of the hot saud. Many thousands of birds con- 

 gregate at the same place, the laying-yards being often some 

 acres in extent. At the Island of Savo, where these birds 

 especially abound, they become so tame that I have seen a 

 native digging out eggs and birds digging fresh holes to lay in 

 within a few yards of one another. "'■= 



The presence of this bird in some of the islands of eastern 

 Polynesia can only be due to human agency. In Niafu, one 

 of the very remote islands of the Tonga Group, the Megapodes 

 are very numerous. Eomilly, who visited the place in 1881, 

 states that the coast is so rocky and precipitous the natives 

 are unable to keep either boats or canoes ; and he thus describes 

 the mode of landing: " Landing can only be managed on the 

 calmest days, and even on shore there is no spot where a boat 

 can be beached. There is a slippery rock on which the natives 

 stand, and, as you watch your opportunity for a jump, they 

 form a chain, holding each other's hands. You then make 

 your spring, and the last native of the chain catches you any 

 way he can, and hauls you up like a bale of goods."! Yet 

 these people possess horses, and have constructed a bridle- 

 road round the large lake of mineralised water that occupies 

 the centre of the island. Niafu is subject to very violent 

 earthquakes, during one of which, some years back, a large 

 portion of the land, with all its inhabitants, disappeared sud- 

 denly beneath the ocean. On this submerged land, it is sup- 

 posed, there was a place where horses could be landed. It 

 may thus be seen how the presence of an animal in a certain 

 locality may confirm a very imperfectly-recorded fact, or even 

 reveal a fact, in the absence of any record. The Niafu horses 

 testify to the activity of our own times, the Megapodes to the 

 activity of some former period. 



The Mcgajjodms brendileyi is found as far west as Celebes, 

 and was observed at the Philippines by Pigafetta, who ac- 

 companied Magellan, the eggs being there used and sold like 

 those of ordinary domestic fowls.]; As this family of birds 

 belongs to the Australian region, there can be little doubt 

 that its presence in Celebes and the Philippines is also due to 

 human agency. By what people this dispersal was effected 

 will be considered in another chapter. 



From what has been ascertained regarding the general dis- 

 tribution of animal life, we are able to say with certainty that 

 the dingo, or wild dog, of Australia is foreign to the fauna of 

 that continent, and jnust, therefore, have been introduced 



* " A Naturalist among the Head-hunters." C. M. Woodford, 

 t "The Western Pacific and New Guinea." H. H. Romilly. 

 ! " The Life of Ferdinand Magellan." F. H. H. Guillemard. 



