30 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



South Sea Islands will be of popular interest, though 

 of course scientifically they are not new. The two 

 families of mound-building birds in Australia are 

 the scrub turkey and the scrub hen. Several varieties 

 of each are found in Australia and in some of the 

 South Sea Islands. The scrub hen makes a very 

 large nest, returning year after year to the same 

 mound and building it to a great size. In the 

 Solomon Islands these birds have been almost 

 domesticated, and their mounds are counted in the 

 property of a tribe. The fermentation of the 

 mound hatches out the eggs, and when the chicken 

 breaks the shell it lies on its back and scratches its 

 way out of the mound. It may be of interest to 

 observe that there is no difference in the plumage of 

 the male and female in the scrub hen. 



One may encounter the scrub hen right through 

 Polynesia. The scrub turkey is only found in 

 Australia and New Guinea. I have met with two 

 kinds of scrub turkey in Australia. One, which is 

 only found in the north at Cape York, breeds on the 

 tops of mountains, making a very shallow nest. In 

 the case of this bird the head is red and the wattles 

 on the neck are white. The other variety of scrub 

 turkey I have met with in Central Queensland. It 

 makes its nest in the brigalow scrub. The head is 

 red but the wattles on the neck are yellow. In New 

 Guinea I have encountered five different varieties 

 of scrub turkey. 



