86 BIRDS OF THE SPICE ISLANDS. 



And here, also, is a bird, which, though not so 

 beautiful as the rest, is so curious that I cannot 

 pass it over without notice. For we have come 

 to the home and haunt of the wonderful Mound- 

 maker, found here in great abundance. 



The traveller in his wanderings often comes on 

 a curious spectacle. He sees a great heap of 

 rubbish, higher than himself, and about twelve 

 feet wide. At first he thinks it is the hut of a 

 native. But as he watches, with some curiosity, 

 forth steps a bird, a little like a Hen, with brown 

 feathers, sometimes banded with red, and with 

 very strong feet and claws. 



This is the mound-making bird, a distant rela- 

 tion of our own barn-door fowl. But it has not 

 the same habits. It does not choose to sit on its 

 eggs ; but it makes quite another arrangement. 



It lives near the sea-shore, in bushy places 

 where there is a kind of jungle, and where it can 

 pick up sticks and sea-weed, and all kinds of rub- 

 bish from the beach. Of these materials the 

 birds make their great mound, and bury their 

 eggs in it. There is a warmth arising from the 



