30 Wonders of the Bird World 



Wallace Bay, in Celebes, the bird chooses the black 

 volcanic deposits in preference to the white sand. 



Although the habits of the Mound-builders have de- 

 servedly attracted the attention of naturalists as one of the 

 most remarkable phenomena of nature, there has never been 

 a more intelligent account written than that of Dr. Meyer 

 and Mr. Wiglesworth in their lately published ' Birds of 

 Celebes' (vol. ii. p. 68 1), and as it contains a number of new 

 and hitherto unpublished conclusions, I make no apology 

 for quoting it in full. The authors write of the Moleo 



" Unlike the Megapodius, the Megacephalon does not 

 raise a heap of rubbish in which to lay its eggs, but sinks a 

 pit in the sand which it afterwards fills in, burying its egg 

 to a depth of from one to three feet. One of its favourite 

 breeding-grounds has been made known by Dr. Wallace in 

 a spot on the north coast between the islands of Lembeh 

 and Banka, to which Dr. Guillemard and his companions 

 have given the name of ' Wallace Bay.' Meyer has 

 described it as a large irregular bay, with black sand, which 

 did not consist of sand in the common term, but of small 

 stones up to the size of a bean, into which the foot sank up 

 to the ankle. It seems to mark, as Wallace first observed, 

 an ancient lava stream of the Klaba Volcano, which has 

 flown down a valley into the sea, and become decomposed 

 and triturated into loose black sand. 



" In the Bone Valley, Von Rosenberg noticed that the 

 eggs stand on end upright in the sand in which they are 

 laid. According to Wallace, a number of females lay in the 

 same hole, each egg being that of a different bird : but 

 whether he makes this statement from personal observation, 

 or after the assertions of the natives (which are utterly 

 unreliable), or from the finding of many fresh eggs 1 in the 

 same hole, we are not told. Like Dr. Guillemard, Dr- 



1 Many days appear to elapse between the deposit of the successive 

 eggs. 



