RASORES. 149 



searching on the ground for fallen seeds and berries. 

 Rarely were more than four or five seen at one time, and 

 most frequently it occurred singly or in pairs. Up to the 

 present time, our knowledge of the extent of habitat enjoyed 

 by this bird is very limited ; I have never myself seen it in 

 any collections but those made in New South Wales. As its 

 lengthened tarsi would lead us to imagine, it spends much of 

 its time on the ground ; and when flushed in the depths of 

 the forest it merely flies to the branch of some low tree, and 

 there remains with little appearance of fear. 



Its note is loud, mournful, and monotonous. 



The sexes are precisely similar in colour and nearly so in 

 size ; dissection, in fact, is necessary to distinguish them. 



General plumage rich rusty brown, becoming of a dark 

 brown on the wings ; wing-coverts margined with rusty 

 brown ; ear-coverts crossed by narrow bars of black ; sides 

 and back of the neck glossed with bronzy purple ; lateral 

 tail-feathers crossed near the tip by a broad band of black, 

 beyond which the brown colour is paler than at the base ; 

 bill dark olive-brown, mealy at the base ; irides blue, with 

 an outer circle of scarlet ; orbits mealy bluish lilac ; feet 

 pink-red. 



FamHy MEGAPODID^. 



The habits and economy of the birds comprised in this 

 family are both curious and extraordinary, nor are they less 

 singular in their structure, and in my opinion no group of 

 birds is more isolated. By one of our best ornithologists 

 one of the species was classed with the Vultures ; another 

 placed it with Meleac/ris; and a third considered it to be 

 allied to the members of the genus Rallus. From the colonists 

 of Australia the three species inhabiting that coimtry have 

 received the trivial names of Brush-Turkey, Native Pheasant, 

 and Jungle-Powl ; but to none of these birds are they in any 



