BIRDS. 497 



often six feet high and twelve feet across, in the middle of which they 

 bury their eggs. The natives can tell by the condition of these mounds 

 whether they contain eggs or not ; and they rob them whenever they can, 

 as the brick-red eggs (as large as those of a swan) are considered a great 

 delicacy. A number of birds are said to join in making these mounds, 

 and lay their eggs together, so that sometimes forty or fifty may be found. 

 The mounds are to be met with here and there in dense thickets, and arc 

 great puzzles to strangers, who cannot understand who can possibly have 

 heaped together cart-loads of rubbish in such out-of-the-way places ; and 

 when they inquire of the natives they are but little wiser, for it almost 

 always appears to them the wildest romance to be told that it is all clone 

 by birds." 



The maleo, a native of Celebes, has a different habit in laying its eggs. 

 In certain parts of the island there are large beds of volcanic sand, which, 

 under the vertical sun, becomes very hot. To these sandbanks the birds 

 repair in August and September, coining from a distance of ten or fifteen 

 miles to find a suitable spot. Here both cock and hen unite in digging a 

 hole for the eggs, and then cover them up with about a foot of sand. One 

 egg is laid at a time, and at the end of ten or twelve days the hen returns 

 to lay another, and so on until she has laid her complement. Here the 

 eggs are left to be hatched by the heat, and the young birds, on escaping 

 from the shell, quickly work their way to the surface, and immediately 

 disappear in the forest. They can even fly as soon as hatched. 



Concerning the origin of this habit, so contrary to that of most related 

 birds which incubate their eggs, Mr. Wallace has some very interesting 

 observations. "Each egg," says he, "being so large as to entirely fill up 

 the abdominal cavity, and with difficulty pass the walls of the pelvis, a 

 considerable interval is required before the successive eggs can be matured. 

 . . . Each bird lays six or eight eggs, or even more, each season, so that 

 between the first and last there may be an interval of two or three months. 

 Now if these eggs were hatched in the ordinary way, either the parent 

 must continue setting for this long period, or, if they only began to set 

 after the last egg was deposited, the first would be exposed to injury by 

 the climate, or to destruction by the large lizards, snakes, or other animals 

 which abound in the district, because such large birds must roam about a 

 good deal in search of food. Here, then, we seem to have a case in which 

 the habits of a bird may be directly traced to its exceptional organization ; 

 for it will hardly be maintained that this abnormal structure and peculiar 

 food (fallen fruits) were given to them in order that they might not exhibit 

 that parental affection, or possess those domestic instincts so general in the 

 class of birds, and which so much excite our admiration." 



