166 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



ground to the depth of twenty or twenty-four inches, and the 

 cavity filled with leaves of the Eucalyj^ti, on the top of and 

 surrounding which the mound of sand and mixed herbage is 

 raised. Mr. Schomburgk also states that an egg he took 

 home and placed under a domestic hen was hatched the next 

 day, and the young bird appeared covered with feathers and 

 capable of at once obtaining its own food. 



The Ocellated Leipoa is altogether a more slender and 

 elegantly formed bird than the Wattled Talegallus, and 

 moreover differs from that bird in having the head and neck 

 thickly clothed with feathers, and in being adorned with a 

 beautifully variegated style of colouring. 



Head and crest blackish brown ; neck and shoulders dark 

 ash-grey ; the fore part of the former, from the chin to the 

 breast, marked by a series of lanceolate feathers, which are 

 black, with a white stripe down the centre ; back and wings 

 conspicuously marked with three distinct bands of greyish 

 white, brown, and black near the tip of each feather, the 

 marks assuming an ocellate form, particularly on the tips of 

 the secondaries ; primaries brown, their outer webs marked 

 with zigzag lines of darker brown ; rump and upper tail- 

 coverts brownish grey, the feathers of the latter transversely 

 marked with two or three zigzag lines near their tip ; all the 

 imder surface light buff, the tips of the flank-feathers barred 

 with black; tail blackish brown, broadly tipped with buff; 

 bill black ; feet blackish brown. 



Total length 24 inches ; bill 1^ ; wing 12 ; tail 8 J ; tarsi 2^. 



The female so nearly resembles the male in the colouring 

 and general markings of her plumage, that a separate de- 

 scription is quite unnecessary ; I may remark, however, that 

 she is somewhat smaller in size. 



