INSEOTirOROUS BIRDS OF VICTORIA. 203 



MALLEE FOWL 



(LowAN, Mallee Pheasant), 



Lipoa ocellata, Gld. 



Ll-po'a os-el-atd. 

 Lipein, to leave ; ocellata, little eyes. 



Leipoa ocellata, Gould, "Birds of Australia," fol., vol. v., 



pi. 78. 



Geographical Distribution. — Areas 6, 7, 9. 



Key to the Species. — General appearance black and grey, under 

 surface partly scaled ; top of head covered with feathers, form- 

 ing a short, thick crest ; nostrils elongated and oval ; tail long, 

 rounded, with 16 feathers ; the long upper tail coverts reach 

 to the end of the tail ; a double row of large hexagonal plates 

 down the front of the rather short tarsus. 



We have in Australia four species of mound-building birds, 

 one of which is associated with the dry portion of our 

 colony. Although to a large extent insectivorous, they 

 are not strictly so. Judging by the country this species 

 occupies, and its manner of living, it is one of the unique 

 birds of the world, and a genus that has helped to make 

 Australia zoologically famous. Like certain of the Reptilia, 

 it arranges for artificial heat to incubate the eggs in a 

 mound of sand and decomposing leaves. Such a hillock I 

 measured and photographed, and found it to have a circum- 

 ference of 48 feet. A good general history of the bird has 

 been given in the Ibis, 1899, by Mr. W. H. D. Le Souef, 

 C.M.Z.S. The author well remarks :— " The bird has an 

 extensive range in the southern half of Australia, being 

 found in the north-western portion of Victoria, south- 

 western portion of New South Wales, southern South 

 Australia and Western Australia. It is, practically 

 speaking, found wherever the mallee (a dwarf eucalyptus) 



