1922.] Mound-hvildiini Birds of Ansfrnlia. 703 



mouiul is used season after season, the birds scratching out 

 tunnels from two to five feet deep, penetrating the mounds at 

 an angle of 45 degrees. The eggs of one laying bird are five 

 or six in number, each being placed in a separate tunnel, two 

 to three feet from its neighbour. 



The tunnel in nest No. II. had been filled in with green 

 leaves, and a trail sixty feet long led up to the place where 

 the newly laid eggs had been placed. 



When nest No. I. was opened, the young man who had 

 worked his way, several feet head-first, into the filled-in tunnel 

 began to make frantic efforts to get out quickly, calling in 

 mufitied tones for help. His comjianions hauled him out by 

 his heels, when out flew a fully fledged chick, which was 

 secured and the skin sent down to the writer. This skin is 

 now, I believe, in the British Museum. It seems that the 

 newly hatched chick was commencing to work itself out, 

 and finding the intruding hand, pecked it vigorously. The 

 young man thought he had been bitten b}^ a snake and 

 naturally was a good deal frightened. 



In the case of the Meyapodius mounds, the fermentation 

 of the leaves and debris filled into the tunnel-like openings 

 produces sufficient heat under the moist tropical conditions 

 to fully incubate the eggs. As the young have to fend 

 for themselves directly they are hatched, Nature provides 

 that they shall be able to run and fly immediately on 

 leaving the egg. 



Alectura lathami Lath. Scrub- or Brush-Turkey. 



I have met with this bird in the Blackall Bange in 

 southern Queensland and in the semi-tropical brush or 

 forest of northern New South Wales. The country in 

 which these birds occur is moist and trojiical. In the 

 first-named locality, we in October 1903 located a recently 

 made nesting-mound of the above species. It was placed 

 at the base of a large Moreton Bay Fig-tree. The leafage 

 overhead was very thick, and the debris and dead leaves 

 underneath had been pro|)ortionately thick, but for a radius 

 of fifty feet from the mound the ground had been raked bare, 



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