192 GALLIFORMES 



Laclrones, replacing the Pheasants within these limits — save for 

 the Philippines — ^just as the Cracidae do in Neotropical countries. 

 No species is yet recorded from Sumatra or Java, and confirma- 

 tion is needed in the case of the main island of Borneo. 



Megacephalon maleo of North Celebes and the Sanghir Islands 

 is glossy blackish-brown, with salmon-pink breast and belly, a 

 vaulted tail, a black casque of cellular tissue, and dusky bill and 

 feet. The Maleo, as it is called, inhabits hilly country, but resorts 

 in hundreds to sloping gravelly beaches to breed, holes being 

 scratched or dug just above high- water mark, some four or five 

 feet in diameter. In these from two to eight pale brownish-red 

 eggs are laid, about six inches apart — at intervals, it is said, of a 

 fortnight or so — several females occasionally using one cavity. 



Aepypodius hruijni of Waigiou is brownish-black, with chestnut 

 rump and breast, dusky bill and feet ; a fleshy papillose crest adorns 

 the head, and three wattles — one median and two lateral — occur on 

 the neck, all probably red in life. Ae. arfaJdanus of New Guinea 

 is black above and brownish below, with no lateral wattles. 



Catheturus latliami, the " Brush Turkey " of Eastern Australia, 

 is blackish-brown with greyish under surface, shewing conspicuous 

 light margins to the feathers. It has a bright yellow neck-wattle, 

 reddish head and neck, black bill and brown feet. This species 

 forms mounds of earth and decayed leaves, sometimes as much as 

 six feet high and fourteen feet in diameter at the base, and covers 

 the coarse outer layers with fresh leaves and sticks. The central 

 portion is hollowed out like a cup, successive layers of eggs being 

 deposited from the circumference inwards in concentric circles, and 

 the earth gradually filled in above them. Several females some- 

 times utilize the same mound, each being said to lay an egg every 

 second day. These eggs, placed with the small end downwards, 

 number from twenty to nearly forty, and are of a long pointed oval 

 shape and of a white colour with minute granulations. The site 

 is usually a level clearing among scrub, whither the materials are 

 conveyed by being repeatedly thrown backwards by the feet, while 

 the cock possibly assists in building.^ Talegcdlus cuvieri, of 

 Western New Guinea, Salwatti, Mysol and Gilolo, is black with 

 whitish throat ; the naked parts are red-brown, the bill and feet 



^ This species has bred in the Zoological Society's Gardens, Avhere the active young 

 left the mound within twenty-four hours of being hatched. A. D. Bartlett, P.Z.8. 

 1860, pp. 426, 427. C. imrjiureicollis has been recently described from Cape York. 



