170 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 
along it till they find one of the openings, through which they 
push their way, and are caught in the trap. In walking they 
lift up their feet very high, and set up their backs something 
like Guinea-fowls ; they frequently make a loud noise like the 
screech of a chicken when caught; they are very pugnacious, 
and fight with great fury by jumping upon one another’s backs 
and scratching with their long strong claws. © ‘Their food. 
principally consists of seeds and insects.” A very large and 
perfect mound about twenty feet in diameter was visited 
by Mr. Motley, and was composed of sand, earth, and sticks, 
and situated just within the jungle above high-water mark. 
The boatmen managed to find about a dozen eggs buried at a. 
depth of from one to three feet and placed in an upright posti- 
tion, the ground about them being astonishingly hard. ‘The 
eggs thus obtained were placed in a box of sand, and it was 
afterwards discovered that they had all hatched, but from 
neglecting to place them in a proper (¢.e., probably upright) 
position, the chicks had been unable to get up through the 
sand and had all perished. On another occasion one of a num- 
ber of eggs brought in by natives hatched out at the end of three 
weeks. A Malay who saw the young bird emerge said that it 
just shook off the sand and ran away so fast that it was only 
caught with difficulty ; it then appeared to be nearly half-grown, 
and from the first fed itself without hesitation, scratching and 
turning up the sand like an old bird. 
Eggs.—Like those of JZ. nicobariensis ; long, perfect ovals ; 
pinkish stone colour. Average raeneietenes 302 Oy ae 
inches. 7 
IV. THE SANGHIR MEGAPODE, MEGAPODIUS SANGHIRENSIS. 
Megapodius sanghirensis, Schlegel, Notes Leyd Mus. ii. p. 91 
(1880); Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. Brit.. Mus. xxil. p. 450 
(1893). 
Adult.—Upper-parts dark chestuut-brown without any olive 
