NOVEMBER 273 



The instinctively functional habits of those strange 

 gallinaceous fowls Megapodidce the mound-birds or 

 brush-turkeys of Australasia are so complex as to 

 seem necessarily to imply intelligence putting experi- 

 ence to practical use. Primarily, no doubt, their 

 domestic economy may be due to the functional 

 activity of certain highly specialised organs, but they 

 have anticipated human ingenuity by the construction 

 of vast incubators, those of some species being co- 

 operative. Several hens of the Australian Megapodius 

 tumulus combine to form a mound of earth and green 

 foliage, which they scrape together with their huge 

 feet, walking backwards through the forest and kick- 

 ing the stuff behind them. It is recorded that one 

 such mound measured 150 feet in circumference, and 

 that this was not the work of one season, but 

 that fresh material was added each spring before a 

 fresh laying took place. The Megapodius is a bird no 

 bigger than an ordinary fowl; but the Australian 

 brush-turkey (Tallegallus Lathami) is nearly as big as 

 a turkey. I have had the advantage of seeing these 

 birds and examining their work in the Duke of Bedford's 

 woods at Woburn Abbey. Mr. Savile-Kent speaks of 

 Tallegallus as nesting co-operatively ; but the four or 

 five mounds which I saw at Woburn seemed each to 

 be appropriated to a separate pair. Having piled 

 together a mass of vegetable matter, the hen lays her 

 eggs therein, which are then buried in fresh material, 

 and left to be hatched by the heat engendered by 

 fermentation of the decaying leaves. Nor does she 

 lay them in the ordinary sense of the word on their 

 s 



