THE TRUE MEGAPODES. 177 
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 surprising 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 endeavours to escape. In scratching up 
the sand it only used one foot, and having grasped a handful, 
as it were, the sand was thrown behind it, with but little 
apparent exertion, and without shifting its standing position on 
the other leg. 
““T continued to receive the eggs without having an oppor- 
tunity of seeing them taken from the mound until the 6th of 
February, when on again visiting Knocker’s Bay I had the 
gratification of seeing two taken from a depth of six feet in 
one of.the largest mounds I had then seen. In this instance 
the holes ran down in an oblique direction from the centre to- 
wards the outer slope of the hillock, so that, although the eggs 
were six feet deep from the summit, they were only two feet 
deep from the side. The birds are said to lay but a single egg 
in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth is imme- 
diately thrown in lightly until the hole is filled up; the upper part 
of the mound is then smoothed and rounded over. It is easily 
known when a Megapode has been recently excavating, from 
the distinct impressions of its feet on the top and sides of the 
mound, and the earth being so lightly thrown over, that with a 
slender stick the direction of the hole is readily detected, the 
ease or difficulty of thrusting the stick down indicating the 
length of time that may have elapsed since the bird’s opera- 
tions. é 
‘“T revisited Knocker’s Bay 01 the 1oth of February, and 
having with some difficulty penetrated into a dense thicket of 
cane-like, creeping plants I suddenly found myself beside a 
mound of gigantic proportions. It was fifteen feet in height and 
12 N 
