196 CELEBES. [chap. 



to lixed localities as clearly marked as a fur- seal's "hauling- 

 grounds." Here they remain during the breeding period, and may 

 be seen from dawn till sunset busily engaged in laying and 

 covering their eggs. The breeding -grounds at Wallace Bay, as 

 we called the hitherto nameless beach off which we were anchored, 

 extend for a distance of two miles and a half along the shore, and, 

 as that distinguished naturalist has remarked, define accurately 

 the limits of an ancient lava stream, for the forest behind is 

 deficient in large trees, and on either side the shore is of white 

 coral sand, not, like the nesting -ground, of fine black gravel. 

 Immediately above high -water mark is a strip of beach about 

 forty yards in width, and on this little groups of birds, from two 

 or three up to ten or a dozen in number, are always to be found 

 at work. No regular mounds are made, but the beach presents a 

 series of irregular elevations and depressions which in appearance 

 I can compare to nothing better than the surface of a rough, 

 confused sea. As in the case of some other of the Megapodes, 

 the nests appear to be used in common by many of the females, or, 

 more probably still, the bird lays its egg on any part of the beach 

 that suits its fancy. The natives would never look for eggs at the 

 bottom of the deepest depressions, or on the summit of a mound, 

 but shallow trenches and the slopes of the irregular hummocks 

 seemed to be always preferred in searching for them. Although 

 we personally found it extremely hard to discover them, our men 

 were adepts in the art. The method is gently to probe the gravel 

 with a fine stick. Where the egg has just been covered this is, of 

 course, much looser, and the stick passes in readily. The gravel is 

 then scraped away, the stick again used to make certain of the 

 direction, and finally the egg is disinterred, often at the depth of a 

 yard or more below the surface. The heat of the beach, on which 

 the sun is always shining, is considerable. 



To the size of the egg I have abeady alluded. It is four inches 

 and a quarter long by two and a half in breadth, and weighs from 

 8| to 9h ozs. On dissecting a bird the next egg is found to be 



