The Moleo 31 



Wallace watched the birds at work in pairs, choosing either 

 a fresh place or an old hole, but it appears still to need 

 confirmation, whether other pairs make use of the same 

 hole. Owing to the continuous diggings the surface of the 

 sand must always be changing in appearance. Guillemard 

 compares it ' to nothing better than the surface of a rough, 

 confused sea' — and it is conceivable that it would be im- 

 possible for a female to discover the spot where it laid its 

 first egg. 



" Although the Moleo is not known to take any further 

 care for the egg or its product, after the former has been 

 laid in an upright position and covered deeply with sand, 

 this apparent lack of philoprogenitive affection so strongly 

 developed in most birds is counterbalanced by the extra- 

 ordinary forethought — if one may use the word — for the 

 ultimate welfare of the young displayed by the parent-birds, 

 in selecting the places where their eggs and offspring will 

 be left to their fate. The burying of the egg at a consider- 

 able depth answers two purposes, protection from egg- 

 eating animals [N.B. — The eggs do not, however, always 

 escape. Dr. Meyer shot a young crocodile {Crocodilus 

 biporcatus), three feet in length, busy digging for eggs in a 

 Moleo-hole, and saw other crocodile-diggings], and the 

 preservation for it by the needful heat of the sun absorbed 

 during the day, by which the eggs are kept from perishing 

 in the cool of the night. Now black absorbs heat, while 

 white reflects it, and this seems to be the reason why the 

 birds have made a chief breeding-spot of the hot black 

 volcanic sand of Wallace Bay. It is interesting to note 

 that the black gravel on these shores alternates with white 

 sand, as Dr. Meyer knows from personal observations, and 

 that the Moleos only select the black sand, as far as is 

 known. A similar observation is made by Dr. Studer on 

 Megapodius freycineti in New Britain. Here the bird lays 

 its eggs in black volcanic sand, the temperature of which 



