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edges ; tarsi and feet bright orange, the scales on the front 

 ol' the tarsi from the fourth downwards, and the scales of 

 the toes, dark reddish-brown. (Gould.) 



Size about that of a common fowl. 



This is the Onregoorga of the aborigines of the Cobourg 

 Peninsula ; the Jungle-foicl of the colonists of Port Essing- 

 ton. 



Habits, Food, Nidification, <$-c. On Mr. Gilbert's arrival 

 at Port Essington his attention was attracted to numerous 

 great mounds of earth which were pointed out to him by 

 some of the residents as being the tumuli of the abori- 

 gines. The natives, on the other hand, assured him that 

 they were formed by the Jungle-fowl for the purpose of 

 hatching i; Hut this last statement appeared so 



extraordinary, and so much at variance with the general 

 habits of birds, that no one in the settlement believed 

 them, and the great size of the eggs brought in by them 

 as the produce of this bird strengthened the doubt of the 

 veracity of their information. Mr. Gilbert however, know- 

 ing the habits of L''i]inu, took with him an intelligent 

 native, and proceeded about the middle of November to 

 Knocker's Bay, a part of Port Essington harbour compara- 

 tively but litlle known, and where he had been informed 

 a number of these birds were to be seen. He landed be- 

 side a thicket, and had not advanced far from the shore 

 when he came to a mound of sand and shells, with a slight 

 mixture of black soil, the base resting on a sandy beach, 

 only a few feet above high-water mark : it was enveloped 

 in the large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus, was of a conical 

 form, twenty feet in circumference at the base, and about 

 fi\e feet high. On asking the native what it was, he 

 replied, ' Oregoorga Rambal ' (Jungle-fowl's house or 

 Mr. Gilbert scrambled up the sides of it, and found 

 a young bird in a hole about two feet deep ; the nestling, 

 apparently only a few days old, was lying on a few dry 

 withered leaves. The native assured Mr. Gilbert that it 

 would be of no use to look for eggs, as there were no traces 

 of the old birds having lately been there. Mr. Gilbert 

 took the utmost care of the young bird, placed it in a mo- 

 derate-sized box, into which lie introduced a large portion 

 ,tl, and fed it, on bruised Indian corn, which it took 

 rather freely. Its disposition was wild and intractable, 

 and it effected its escape on the third day. While it 

 remained in captivity, it was incessantly employed in 

 scratching up the sand into heaps, and Mr. Gilbert 

 hat the rapidity with which it threw the 

 tand from one end of the box to the other was quite sur- 

 prising for so young and small a bird, its size not being 

 larger than that of a small quail. At night it was so ^^-~\- 

 hat, Mr. Gilbert was constantly kept awake by the 

 noise it made in endeavouring to escape. In scratching 

 up the sand the bird only employed one foot, and having 

 i-d a handful as it were, threw the sand behind it 

 uitli but little apparent exertion, and without shilling its 

 standing position on the other leg: this habit, Mr. Gilbert 

 <1 to be the result of an innate restless dis- 

 position and a desire to use its powerful feet, and to have 

 but little connection with its feeding ; for, although In- 

 dian corn v. as mixed with the sand, Mr. Gilbert never 

 detected the bird in picking any of it up while thus em- 

 ployed. 



Mr. Gilbert continued to receive the eggs without any 

 opportunity of seeing them taken from the ground until the 

 h< L'nining of February, when, on again visiting Knocker's 

 Bay, he saw two taken from a depth of six feet, in one of 

 the largest mounds he had met with. In this instance the 

 holes ran down in ah oblique direction from the centre 

 towards the outer slope of the hillock, so that although 

 the eggs were six feet deep from the summit, they were 

 only two or three feet from the side. ' The birds,' s-ays 

 Mr. Gilbert in continuation, ' are said to lay but a single 

 ceg in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth 

 is immediately thrown down lightly until the hole is filled 

 up ; the upper part of the mound is then smoothed and 

 rounded over. It is easily known when a Jungle-fowl has 

 been recently excavating, from the distinct impressions of 

 itg feel on the top and sides of the mound, and the earth 

 being so lightly thrown over, that with a slender stick the 

 direction of the hole is readily detected, the ease or diffi- 

 culty of thrusting the stick down indicating the length of 

 time that may have elapsed since the bird's operations. 

 Thus far it is "easy enough ; but to reach the eggs requires 

 no little exertion and perseverance. The natives dig 



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them up with their hands alone, and only make sufficient 

 room to admit their bodies, and to throw out the earth 

 between their legs ; by grubbing with their fingers alone 

 they are enabled to follow the direction of the hole with 

 greater certainty, which will sometimes, at a depth of 

 several feet, turn off abruptly at right angles, its direct 

 course being obstructed by a clump of wood or some other 

 impediment. Their patience is however often put to 

 severe trials. In the present instance the native dug down 

 six times in succession to a depth of at least six or seven 

 feet without finding an egg, and at the last attempt came 

 up in such a state of exhaustion that he refused to try 

 again ; but my interest was now too much excited to 

 relinquish the opportunity of verifying the native's state- 

 ments, and by the offer of an additional reward I induced 

 him to try again : this seventh trial proved successful, and 

 my gratification was complete when the native with equal 

 pride and satisfaction held up an egg, and, after two or 

 three more attempts, produced a second : thus proving 

 how cautious Europeans should be of disregarding the 

 narrations of these poor children of nature, because they 

 happen to sound extraordinary or different from anything 

 with which they were previously acquainted.' 



Upon another occasion Mr. Gilbert and his native, after 

 an hour's excessive labour, obtained an egg from the 

 depth of about five feet. It was in a perpendicular posi- 

 tion. Tile holes in this mound (which was fifteen feet 

 high and sixty in circumference at the base, and, like the 

 majority of those that he had seen, so enveloped in thickly 

 foliaged trees as to preclude the possibility of the sun's 

 rays reaching any part of it) commenced at the outer edge 

 of the summit and ran down obliquely towards the centre : 

 their direction therefore, Air. Gilbert observes, is not uni- 

 form. Tile mound was quite warm to the hands. 



How the young effect their escape does not appear ; 

 some natives told Mr. Gilbert that the nestlings effected 

 their escape unaided ; but others said that the old birds at 

 the proper time scratched down and released them. The 

 natives say that only a single pair of birds are ever found 

 at a mound at a time. Our space will not permit a more 

 detailed account of these highly curious mounds; but the 

 reader should consult Mr. Gould's highly valuable work 

 for other particulars : we can only spare room for Mr. 

 Gilbert's description of the general habits of this interest- 

 ing species. 



' The Jungle-fowl is almost exclusively confined to the 

 dense thickets immediately adjacent to the sea-beach : it 

 appears never to go far inland, except along the banks of 

 creeks. It is always met with in pairs or quite solitary, 

 and feeds on the ground, its food consisting of roots which 

 its powerful claws enable it to scratch up with the utmost 

 facility, and also of seeds, berries, and insects, particularly 

 the larger species of Coleoptera. It is at all times a very 

 difficult bird to procure ; for although the rustling noise 

 produced by its stiff pinions when flying away be fre- 

 quently heard, the bird itself is seldom to be seen. Its 

 flight is heavy and unsustained in the extreme ; when first 

 disturbed it invariably flies to a tree, and on alighting 

 stretches out its head and neck in a straight line with its 

 body, remaining in this position as stationary and motion- 

 less as the branch upon which it is perched : if however 

 it becomes fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal but labo- 

 rious flight for about a hundred yards with its legs hang- 

 ing down as if broken. I did not myself detect, any note 

 or cry, but from the native's description and imitation of 

 it, it much resembles the clucking of the domestic fowl, 

 ending with a scream like that of the peacock. I ob- 

 served that the birds continued to lay from the latter part 

 of August to March, when I left that part of the country; 

 and, according to the testimony of the natives, there is 

 only an interval of about four or five months, the driest 

 and hottest part of the year, between their seasons of in- 

 cubation. The composition of the mound appears to in- 

 fluence the colouring of a thin epidermis with which the 

 ejjgs are covered, and which readily chips off, showing 

 the true shell to be white : those deposited in the black 

 soil are always of a dark reddish-brown ; while those from 

 the sandy hillocks near the beach are of a dirty yellowish 

 white : they differ a good deal in size, but in form they 

 all assimilate, both ends being equal : they are three 

 inches and five lines long by two inches and three lines 

 broad.' (Birds of Australia.) 



Mr. Gould has thus given the history of these three 



