IIASORES. IGD 



seen. I landed beside a thicket, and had not proceeded far 

 from the shore ere I came to a mound of sand and shells, with 

 a slight mixture of black soil, the base resting on a sandy 

 beach, only a few feet above high-water mark ; it was 

 enveloped in the large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus, was of a 

 conical form, twenty feet in circumference at the base, and 

 about five feet in height. On pointing it out to the native 

 and asking him what it was, he replied ' Oooregoorga 

 Rambal,' Megapode's house or nest. I then scrambled lip 

 the sides of it, and to my extreme delight found a young bird 

 in a hole about two feet deep ; it was lying on a few dry 

 withered leaves, and appeared to be only a few days old. So 

 far I was satisfied that these mounds had some connexion 

 with the bird's mode of incubation ; but I was still sceptical 

 as to the probability of these young birds ascending from so 

 great a depth as the natives represented ; and my suspicions 

 were confirmed by my being unable to induce the native, in 

 this instance, to search for the eggs, his excuse being that 

 ' he knew it would be useless, as he saw no traces of the 

 old birds having recently been there.' I took the utmost 

 care of the young bird, intending to rear it if possible ; I 

 therefore obtained a moderately- sized box, and placed in it a 

 large portion of sand. As it fed rather freely on bruised 

 Indian corn, I was in full hopes of succeeding ; but it proved 

 of so wild and intractable a disposition that it would not 

 reconcile itself to such close confinement, and effected its 

 escape on the third day. During the period it remained in 

 captivity it was incessantly occupied in scratching up the 

 sand into heaps ; and the rapidity with which it threw the 

 sand from one end of the box to the other was quite sm-- 

 prising for so young and small a bird, its size not being 

 larger than that of a small Quail. At night it was so restless 

 that I was constantly kept awake by the noise it made in its 

 endeavoiu's to escape. In scratching up the sand it only used 

 one foot, and having grasped a handful as it were, the sand 



