THE OCELLATED MEGAPODES. 187 
Lipoa ocellata, Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxii. p. 463 
(1893). 
Adult Male and Female—Top of the head dark brown, the 
feathers forming a thick, pointed crest; mantle mostly grey ; 
back, shoulder-feathers, and wing-coverts grey, widely banded 
with brownish-black and white ; inner secondary quills very 
similar ; forehead and eyebrow-stripes greyish ; cheeks and 
throat rust colour ; upper breast grey, with a band of black and 
white feathers down the middle; rest of under-parts whitish, 
barred with black on the sides. Total length, 24 inches ; wing, 
125 ; tail, 9 ; tarsus; 3°1: 
Range.—South and West Australia. 
Habits.— Mr. Gilbert gives the following account of this hand- 
some bird’s habits :—“ This morning I had the good fortune 
to penetrate into the dense thicket I had been so long anxious 
to visit in search of the Leipoa’s eggs, and had not proceeded 
far before the native who was with me told me to keep a good 
look-out, as we were among the /Vgou-oo’s hillocks ; and in half 
an hour after we found one, around which the brush was so 
thick that we were almost running over it before seeing it. 
. . . He began scraping off the earth very carefully from 
the centre, throwing it over the side, so that the mound very 
soon presented the appearance of a huge basin ; about two feet 
in depth of earth was in this way thrown off, when the large 
ends of two eggs met my anxious gaze ; both these eggs were 
resting on their smaller apex, and the earth round them had 
to be very carefully removed to avoid breaking the shell, which 
is extremely fragile when first exposed to the atmosphere. 
About a hundred yards from this first mound we came upon a 
second, rather larger, of the same external form and appear- 
ance; it contained three eggs. Although we saw seven or 
eight more mounds, only these two contained eggs; we were 
too early ; a week later, and we should doubtless have found 
many more. . . . In both the nests with eggs the White 
Ant was very numerous, making its little covered galleries of 
