RASORES. 153 



frequently uncover and cover them up again, apparently for the 

 purpose of assisting those that may have appeared; while others 

 have informed me that the eggs are merely deposited, and the 

 young allowed to force their way unassisted. One point has 

 been clearly ascertained, namely, that the young from the 

 hour they are hatched are clothed with feathers, and have 

 their wings sufficiently developed to enable them to fly on to 

 the branches of trees, should they need to do so to escape 

 from danger ; they are equally nimble on their legs ; in fact, 

 as a moth emerges from a chrysalis, dries its wings, and flies 

 away, so the youthful Talegallus, when it leaves the egg, is 

 sufficiently perfect to be able to act independently and 

 procure its own food. This we know from personal obser- 

 vation of the bird in a state of captivity ; several old birds 

 having constructed mounds, in which their eggs have been 

 deposited and their young developed, in the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society in the Regent's Park. I shall always look 

 back with pleasure to the fact of my being the first to make 

 known these singular habits. Although, unfortunately, I was 

 almost too late for the breeding-season, I nevertheless saw 

 several of these hatching-mounds, both in the interior of New 

 South Wales and at Illawarra ; in every instance they were 

 placed in the most retired and shady glens, and on the slope 

 of a hill, the part above the mound being scratched clean, 

 while all below remained untouched, as if the birds had 

 found it more easy to convey the materials down than to 

 throw them up. The eggs are perfectly white, of a long 

 oval form, three inches and three-quarters long by two 

 inches and a half in diameter. 



When disturbed, the Wattled Talegallus readily eludes 

 pursuit by the facility with which it runs through the tangled 

 brush. If hard pressed, or when rushed upon by its great 

 enemy the native dog, it springs upon the lowermost bough 

 of some neighbouring tree, and by a succession of leaps from 

 branch to branch ascends to the top, and either perches there 



