NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 143 



dimensions. Mr. Gould obtained some confirmation of 

 this opinion; for, in searching for eggs in one of the 

 mounds, he discovered the remains of a young bird, 

 apparently just excluded from the shell, but it was 

 clothed with feathers, not mth down, as is usually the 

 case. The upright position of the eggs, he observes, 

 tends to strengthen the opinion that they are never dis- 

 turbed after they are deposited, for it is well known that 

 the eggs of birds which are placed horizontally are fre- 

 quently turned during incubation. This may be seen by 

 any one who will closely watch a common sitting hen. 

 Mr. Gould was almost too late for the breeding season, 

 but he saw several of the heaps, both in the interior and 

 at Illawarra. They were always in the most retired and 

 shady glens, and on the slope of a hill, the part above 

 the nest being scratched clean, while all below remained 

 untouched, as if the birds had found it easier to convey 

 the materials down than to throw them up. Mr. Gould 

 found only one perfect egg, but he saw the shells of many 

 from which the young had escaped in the position above 

 described. At Illawarra he found them rather deposited 

 in the light vegetable mould than among the leaves, 

 which were accumulated in a considerable heap above 

 them. 



The comparatively large size of the eggs has been 

 alluded to. Mr. Gould describes them as perfectly white ; 

 of a long oval form, three inches and three-quarters long, 

 by two inches and a half in diameter. He saw a livincr 

 specimen in the garden of the late lamented Mr. Alex- 

 ander M'Leay, at Sydney, which had for two successive 

 years collected an immense mass of materials, as if it had 

 been in its native woods. Wherever it was allowed to 

 range — borders, lawn, and shrubbeiy — presented an 

 appearance that would have satisfied the most fastidious 

 lover of garden neatness, for they looked as if they had 

 been reg-ularly swept, from the bird having scratched 



