MOUND BIRD 



3976 



MOUND BUILDERS 



WORK OF THE MOUND BUILDERS 



(1) Mound, or circle, in Greenup County, Kentucky; (2) Mound with moat or encircling wall 

 (diameter, 100 feet), West Virginia; (3) Serpent mound (500 feet long), Adams County, Ohio; 

 (4) Cahokia mound (998 feet long, 99 feet high), Illinois; (5) Great mound, Marietta, Ohio; 

 (6) Alligator mound, Licking County, Ohio; (7) Curve of hill and cross section of (6). 



came a member of the Provincial Congress of 

 his state, and was made colonel of a South 

 Carolina regiment the same year. In March, 

 1776, he erected a fort on Sullivan's Island, 

 commanding the entrance to the harbor of 

 Charleston, and in recognition of his successful 

 resistance to the attacks of the British army, 

 under Admiral Sir Peter Parker, Congress gave 

 the fort his name. He was shortly after made 

 a brigadier-general, and in 1779 again defeated 

 the British at Beaufort. On the surrender of 

 Charleston, in 1780, Moultrie was taken pris- 

 oner, but was afterward exchanged for Bur- 

 goyne. In 1785, and again in 1794, he was 

 elected governor of South Carolina. 



MOUND BIRD, a bird belonging to the same 

 group as the domestic fowl, whose name refers 

 to its curious habit of building a large mound 

 in which to hatch its eggs. This bird usually 

 scratches up with its large feet a huge mass of 

 grass, leaves and turf ; in this heap the eggs are 

 laid and hatched, the mound forming a crude 

 incubator which is heated by the decaying of 

 the vegetable matter. It is supposed that the 

 young, on emerging from the eggs, dig their 

 way out through the side of the mound. As 

 soon as they leave the nest they are able to fly 

 and to shift for themselves. The eggs are white 

 when freshly laid, and are of unusual size, be- 

 ing from three to four inches long. The same 

 mound is used season after season, and as fresh 

 material is added at breeding time, the older 

 nests are often of huge size. 



The mound birds dwell along the seacoasts 

 and on the banks of streams in Australia and the 

 neighboring islands. They are modestly garbed 

 in dull-colored plumage, and vary greatly in 

 size. The smallest are about as large as a small 

 fowl; the larger attain the size of a small tur- 



key. All have unusually large feet, similar in 

 structure to those of the pigeon. These birds 

 are commonly known in Australia as jungle 

 fowl; a familiar species inhabiting New Guinea 

 is known as the brush turkey. The flesh of the 

 mound bird is used as a table food. 



MOUND BUILDERS, the name given to peo- 

 ple, supposedly of the Stone Age, who preceded 

 the Indians in North America. Chiefly because 

 of differences in the formation of the skull, the 

 Mound Builders are generally believed to have 

 been a race separate and distinct from the In- 

 dians, and not their ancestors. The Mound 

 Builders get their name from the fact that it 

 was they who built the curiously-shaped 

 mounds of earth which are scattered all over 

 the United States but are especially numerous 

 in the valleys of the Mississippi River and its 

 branches. It is only by these mounds that we 

 possess any knowledge of the people. Both 

 Mound Builders and Indians are known by the 

 general term Amerind. 



It is estimated that there are more than 10,- 

 000 of these earth mounds in Ohio alone. They 

 are of all sizes and shapes circular, square and 

 even eight-sided. The very large mounds are 

 interesting because they represent an immense 

 amount of labor. This means that the people 

 who built them must have settled in that sec- 

 tion for a considerable period, although they 

 are believed to have been, very largely, a wan- 

 dering race. One of the largest, Grave Creek 

 Mound, in West Virginia, is about seventy feet 

 high and 900 feet in circumference. Two hu- 

 man skeletons found deep underneath this 

 mound indicate that it was built as a burial 

 monument. 



A mound at Cahokia, 111., rises up in terraces 

 to a height of ninety feet and covers about 



