176 RAMBLES IN THE DESERT 



much worrying the game of this district. The birds ran 

 very fast, not readily taking to the wing, and when they 

 did so, flying but a short distance to the nearest patch 

 of thick brush, where they easily escaped by running. 

 Altogether we shot about two dozen in three days, and 

 found them very palatable food. 



It is usually stated that the eggs, which are buried 

 in the mounds, are hatched by the heat engendered by 

 the fermentation of the vegetation of which they are 

 constructed, but I think that the heat of the sun is the 

 real vivifyer. 



The mounds seen here were of many sizes, the largest 

 being five feet high and twenty-seven in circumference 

 at the base. Others were three and four feet high and 

 eight in diameter, and the smallest about two feet high 

 and five in diameter. As I have seen the mounds of 

 this and other species in many different parts of the 

 country and watched the birds at work, it may not be 

 out of place to give a detailed account of them, though 

 for a long time naturalists have been well acquainted 

 with the ways and habits of all the species ; indeed, in 

 many parts of the country the bird is so well known that 

 it has been exterminated, by which remark I mean to 

 convey a rebuke rather than a bit of humour. 



The bird works something like a scratching hen, but 

 such substances as grass, etc., are actually grasped in the 

 powerful claws and thrown forcibly backwards, sometimes 

 a distance of several feet. The bird can throw grass and 

 leaves to the top of mounds, which are four or five feet 

 high, though substances are also scratched up the slopes 

 of them. When a new mound is commenced, eggs are 

 laid in it when it is only sixteen or eighteen inches high, 

 and perhaps not more than four feet in diameter. The 

 egg is placed on end, surrounded with a thick layer of 

 grass, leaves, and loose weeds, and the whole buried about 

 two feet deep. Perhaps as many as six or eight eggs 

 are placed in a layer at the same depth, and it is often 

 asserted that another layer is placed over the first. I 

 very much doubt the correctness of this opinion, but the 



