MAVIS—MEGAPODE 539 
bottle-shaped nest, as does also the Rock-Martin of Europe, Hirundo 
or Biblis rupestris; but space fails wherein to tell more of these 
interesting birds, which are treated of in the beautifully-illustrated 
monograph of Hirundinide now in course of publication by Messrs. 
Sharpe and Wyatt. 
MAVIS, Fr. Mauvis,! a common local name of the Song-THRUSH. 
MAXILLA, a rather slender bone on each side of the anterior 
part of the head connecting the jugal with the premaxilla, and 
forming part of the lateral margin of what is often called the Upper 
Mandible, though the word Maxilla is frequently used to express 
the whole of the upper jaw. Its palatal processes are of consider- 
able taxonomic value (see SKULL). 
MAY-BIRD and MAY-FOWL, common names of the WHIMBREL 
in England, and the former given on the east coast of North America 
to the KNoT as well as to the BOBOLINK, while 
MAY-COCK is, in places, applied to the Grey PLover, Squatarola 
helvetica ; and 
MAY-CHICK, according to Sir T. Browne, was used in Norfolk 
for some bird “a little bigger than a Stint, of fatness beyond any.” 
This last seems to be obsolete ; but all doubtless refer to the month 
in which the birds bearing the names appeared. 
MEADOW-CHICKEN and MEADOW-HEN, names given in 
North America to more than one species of Ratt or Coor; but the 
MEADOW-LARK of the same country is Sturnella magna (see 
ICTERUS). 
MEGAPODE, the name given generally to a small but remark- 
able Family of birds highly characteristic of some parts of the Aus- 
tralian Region, to which it is almost peculiar. The MJegapodiidx with 
the Cracidx form that division of Gallinw named by Prof. Huxley 
Peristeropodes (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1868, p. 296), and morphologically 
seem to be the lowest of the Order, with which apparent fact may 
perhaps be correlated their singular habit of leaving their eggs to be 
hatched without incubation, either burying them in the ground (as 
many Reptiles do) or heaping over them a mound of earth, leaves, 
1 Now applied chiefly to the Repwinc, Twrdus iliacus, but also to the Crested 
Lark, and the Mauviette of French cookery is always a Lark. The old Norman 
form, whence we probably get our word, is said to be Maulvis (Gasté apud Rolland, 
Fauune Pop. Fr. p. 243). According to Littré its origin is uncertain; some 
supposing it to be the Low Latin Malvitius (= malum vitis, or scourge of the vine, 
the Neapolitan Marvizzo), others allege the Low Breton Milvid (a Gull) or 
Milhuez (a Lark). The Walloon Mdvi or Maiwi, according to Baron de Selys- 
Longchamps a BLACKBIRD, is evidently the same word. 
