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6. ON AN UNDESCRIBED SPECIES OF MEGAPODIUS. 
By L. Luewettyn Ditiwyn, Esa., F.G.S., F.Z.S. ere. 
(Aves, Pl. XX XIX.) 
My friend Mr. James Motley, who is now conducting the operations 
of the Eastern Archipelago Company in Labuan, has lately sent me 
home a box of zoological specimens which he has collected in that 
island, and among the birds was the pair of the Megapodius, one of 
which I now produce; it is, I believe, identical with the species in 
the British Museum sent home by Mr. Cuming from the Philip- 
pine Islands. In the catalogue accompanying the specimens, and, 
in several letters which I have received from him, he has described 
some of the habits of these curious birds, and deeming that original 
observations, however scanty, on the habits of almost any animal 
from that remote region might not be uninteresting to the Society, I 
have abstracted from his communications to me the following notice 
respecting them :— 
These birds are said to be principally confined to small islands, 
and to such more especially as have sandy beaches; they are not 
uncommon in Labuan, but are, however, very rarely to be seen, as 
they are very shy, and frequent dense flat parts of the jungle, where 
the ratans grow and where the luxuriance of the vegetation renders 
concealment easy. 
The Malays snare them by forming long thick fences in unfre- 
quented parts of the jungle; in these they leave openings at intervals 
in which they place traps; the birds, running through the cover in 
search of food, meeting the obstruction caused by the fence, run 
along it till they come to one of the openings, through which they 
push their way and are trapped. 
Their food principally consists of seeds and insects. 
In walking they lift their feet very high from the ground, and set 
up their backs something like guinea fowls; they frequently make a 
loud noise, like the very loud screech of a chicken when caught. 
They are very pugnacious, and fight with great fury by jumping 
upon one another’s backs and scratching with their long strong claws. 
The eggs are of a fine dark cream-colour, and of very large size, 
three of them weighing nearly as much as a full-grown bird. Ac- 
cording to the general account given to Mr. Motley by the Malays, 
each bird lays about eight or ten at each time of breeding ; the place 
they select for depositing them is always situated near the beach, and 
close within the edge of the jungle, and here they bury them in the 
sandy soil to the depth of about eighteen inches; over the place 
where they are thus buried the bird collects a large heap of shells 
and rubbish, so that a person who has seen their nest has no diffi- 
culty in finding it again; the eggs thus deposited are left to be hatched 
by the heat of the sun, and this the natives assert requires between 
three and four months to complete. Mr. Motley himself found upon 
breaking an egg which had been thus situated for nearly six weeks, 
that it contained merely the embryo of a chick, about as much ad- 
vanced as that of a hen’s egg at four days. Some other eggs which 
