THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89 



in the List for the first time in 1848. From the same quarter of 

 the globe came the brush- turkeys and the maleo — mound- birds 

 that make no nest, but bury their eggs respectively in masses of 

 decaying vegetation or in pits in the sand, thus avoiding the duty 

 of incubation. It seems strange that no example of the latter 

 had been imported before; for Professor Newton shows'^ that 

 Pigafetta, one of the survivors of Magellan's voyage, recorded 

 in his Journal, under date of April, 1521, the existence of the 

 mound-bird of the Philippines. 



To these must be added a pair of silky bower birds, from New 

 South Wales. The anomalous architecture of this species was 

 discovered by Gould, and described by him in the Proceedings 

 (1840, p. 94). In the following year the birds constructed 

 a bower in the aviary in which they had been placed, and 

 it was thus described in the Illustrated London News of 

 July 14, 1849 : 



The bower is composed of twigs woven together in the most compact 

 manner, and ornamented with shells and feathers, the disposition of which 

 the birds are continually altering. . . . The extreme shyness of the 

 birds, who retire from the bower on the first approach of a spectator, 

 accounts for the origin and object of these structures remaining so long 

 unknown, even to the settlers. They have no connection with the 'nest, 

 and are simply playing-places, in which the birds divert themselves during 

 the months which immediately precede nidification. 



The birds were extremely lively, and the writer expressed a 

 hope that they would " eventually make a nest, and thus elucidate 

 the only point in their interesting history which Mr. Gould was 

 unable to solve during his researches in Australia." The nest 

 and eggs were not found till about 1876, and the story may 

 be read in the first volume of A. J. Campbell's "Nests and 

 Eggs of Australian Birds." 



A fine lion and the male European bison were lost by 

 inflammation of the lungs, attributed by Owen to the cold 

 fogs incident to the undrained soil. " The records of medi- 

 cine," he said,t " bear testimony to similar ill effects upon the 

 mucous tract of the respiratory organs of the human inhabitants 

 of the Regent's Park whose habits and strength of constitution 



* ** Dictionary of Birds," s.v, Megapode. 

 t Proceedings, 1848, p. 126. 



