194 GALLIFORMES CHAP. 
deposited daily, the discrepancy between Lipoa and Megacephalon 
being in this respect very remarkable, but conflicting assertions 
are only what may be expected where several females lay together, 
and further investigation should easily decide the question. 
The genus Megapodius contains some fifteen species, about the 
size of a small fowl, in which the coloration varies from olive or 
chestnut-brown to blackish or grey above, and from red-brown 
to pale or dark-grey below, the bill being reddish, greenish, or 
yellowish, and the feet black, red, orange, yellow, or horn-coloured. 
M. pritchardi, of Ninafou, alone has white bases to the primaries, 
and IM. wallacii, of the Moluccas, exhibits bright chestnut bands 
on the upper surface. JL duperreyi (tumulus), which ranges 
from the Kangeang Islands and Lombok to New Guinea and 
North-East Australia, fashions mounds, occasionally ten feet high, 
in dense scrub, laying pale coftee-coloured eggs in long burrows 
bored laterally, and not in symmetrical circles, as does Cathe- 
turus. MM. layardi, of the New Hebrides, frequents damp wooded 
ravines, and is said to deposit its red-brown eggs among leaves in 
hollows. Jf cwmingi, found from the islands north of Borneo and 
Palawan to the Philippines and Celebes, builds mounds of sand, 
leaves, and so forth, near the sea, the chalky eggs having a salmon 
hue. JL eremita, extending from the Solomon Islands almost to 
New Guinea, buries its eggs a couple of feet deep in open sandy spots, 
kept clear and fenced into allotments by the natives in Savo and 
Guadalcanar; while JZ nicobariensis, of the Nicobars, appears to 
flock more than other Megapodes, and to lay its eggs at long intervals. 
M. tenimberensis, of the Tenimber Islands, JZ sanghirensis of the 
Sanghir group, JZ bernsteini of the Sula Islands, IZ forsteni and I. 
Sreycineti, ranging from the Moluccas to Western or even Northern 
New Guinea, JZ. macgillivrayi of the Louisiade and D’Entrecasteaux 
Archipelagos and Eastern New Guinea, J. geelvinkianus, of the west 
of the latter with its islands, and JL laperousii, of the Pelew and 
Ladrone groups, are like their congeners in habits and appearance. 
Chosornis praeteritus is an extinct form from Queensland. 
Fam. V. Cracidae.—These birds are almost identical in struc- 
ture with the Megapodiidae, though sharply contrasted in their 
arboreal habits and their style of breeding. They may be divided 
into the Sub-familes (1) Cracinae or Curassows, (2) Penelopinae 
or Guans, and (3) Oreophasinae. Of the first of these, where 
the maxilla is higher than it is broad, the genus Crax has a soft 
