108 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



ones are never in the nursery at all, so to 

 speak, but look after themselves as soon as 

 they come out of the egg. These are the 

 mound-birds, which look rather like part- 

 ridges or, sometimes, small turkeys, and have 

 much the same habits as these birds when 

 they are grown up, except when they are 

 nesting. Then they do not sit on their 

 eggs, but bury these in the ground, or in a 

 mound of sand or earth and leaves or twigs, 

 which they scratch up with their big strong 

 feet. 



When the young ones are hatched, they 

 scratch their way up to the open air, and run 

 off to begin life on their own account. They 

 can not only run at once, but fly, for their 

 wings are feathered at the time of hatching, 

 and so they are well fitted to make a start in 

 the world at once. These strange birds are 

 found in the islands of the South Seas and in 

 Australia, and one Australian kind, which is 

 called the brush-turkey, is always kept in 

 the Zoo, and sometimes makes its mound and 

 hatches out its queer chickens there. 



The young of these mound-birds are wild 

 and timid from the first, which is well for 



