MEGAPODES AND BRUSH TURKEYS 



2205 



Megapodes 



the present family are chiefly remarkable on account of their nesting 



habits, their eggs being deposited in the sand or in a mound raised by 

 one or more pairs of birds, and incubated by the heat caused by the fermentation of 

 the decaying vegetable matter and the warmth of the sun. The young are hatched 

 fully feathered, and able to fly almost from birth. The legs and feet of all these 

 "birds are remarkably strong and stout, and thus well suited for scratching up the 

 earth and preparing their nesting mounds. The true megapodes include fifteen dif- 

 ferent species, widely scattered over the islands of the Pacific and Australia, one 

 {Megapodius cumingi) ranging to the Philippines, another (M. laperousii) being 

 found in the Ladrone and Peiew islands, while an isolated western form occurs in 

 the Nicobars. The plumage is remarkably sombre, being generally olive brown or 

 rufous above and gray beneath. The Nicobar megapode (TV. nicobariensis) during 

 the day frequents the dense jungle near the coast, and may be met with in pairs or 

 in flocks of thirty or more. It 

 is a difficult bird to flush, 

 usually preferring to escape by 

 running. The nesting mounds 

 are generally placed near the 

 shore, and average about five 

 feet in height and thirty in 

 circumference. Davison met 

 with one ' ' which must have 

 been at least eight feet high 

 and quite sixty feet in circum- 

 ference. It was apparently a 

 very old one, for from near its 

 centre grew a tree about six 

 inches in diameter, whose roots 

 penetrated the mound in all 

 directions to within a foot of 

 its summit, some of them being 

 nearly as thick as a man's wrist, 

 level of the surrounding land, 



BLACK-THROATED CRESTED QUAII,. 



I had this mound dug away almost to the 

 but only got three eggs from it, one quite 

 fresh, and two in which the chicks were somewhat developed. Off this mound 

 I shot a megapode, which had evidently only just laid an egg. I dissected 

 it, and from a careful examination it would seem that the eggs are laid at long inter- 

 vals apart, for the largest egg in the ovary was only about the size of a large pea, 

 and the next in size about as big as a small pea. These mounds are also used by 

 reptiles, for out of one I dug, besides the megapode' s eggs, about a dozen eggs of 

 some large lizard. I made inquiries among the natives about these birds, and from 

 them I learned that they usually get four or five eggs from a mound, but some- 

 times they get as many as ten; they all assert that only one pair of birds are con- 

 cerned in the making of a mound, and that they only work at night. When newly 

 made, the mounds (so I was informed) are small, but are gradually enlarged by the 

 birds," 



