THE XEGAPODE. 155 



particle of soil similar to that of which they are composed occurs for miles round ; how the soil is pro- 

 duced in such situations appears unaccountable. It has been said that the parent birds bring- it 

 from a great distance ; but as, as we have seen, they readily adapt themselves to the difference of 

 situation, this is scarcely probable. 1 conceive that they collect the dead leaves, and other vegetable 

 matter that may be at hand, and which, decomposing, forms this particular description of soil. 

 The mounds are doubtless the work of many years, and of many birds in succession ; some of them are 

 evidently very ancient, trees being often seen growing from their sides. In one instance I found a tree 

 growing from the middle of a mound which was a foot in diameter. I endeavoured to glean from the 

 natives how the young effect their escape ; but on this point they do not agree, some asserting that 

 they find their way unaided, others, on the contrary, affirmed that the old birds, knowing when the 

 young are ready to emerge from their confinement, scratch down and release them. 



" The natives say that only a single pair of birds are ever found at one mound at a time, and 

 such, judging from my own observation, I believe to be the case. They also affirm that the eggs are 

 deposited at night, at intervals of several days, and this I also believe to be correct, as four eggs, taken 

 on the same day, and from the same mound, contained young in different stages of development ; and 

 the fact that they are always placed perpendicularly is established by the concurring testimony of all 

 the .different tribes of natives I have questioned on the subject. 



" The Megapode is confined almost exclusively to the dense thickets immediately adjacent to the 

 sea-beach ; it appears never to go far inland except along the banks of creeks. It is always met with 

 in pairs, or quite solitary, and feeds on the ground, its food consisting of roots, which its powerful 

 claws, enable it to scratch up with the xitmost facility, and also of seeds, berries, and insects, parti- 

 cularly the larger species of coleoptera. It is at all times a very difficult bird to procure ; for 

 although the rustling noise produced by its stiff pinions when flying may be frequently heard, the bird 

 itself is seldom to be seen. Its flight is heavy and unsustained in the extreme. When first disturbed, 

 it invariably flies to a tree, and on alighting stretches out its head and neck in a straight line with its 

 body, remaining in this position as stationary and motionless as the branch upon which it is perched ; 

 if, however, it becomes fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal but laborious flight for about a hundred 

 yards, with its legs hanging down as if broken. I did not myself detect any note or cry, but from the 

 natives' description and imitation of it, it much resembles the clucking of the domestic fowl, ending 

 with a scream like a Peacock. 



" I observed that the birds continued to lay from the latter part of August to March, when I left that 

 part of the country ; and, according to the testimony of the natives, there is only an interval of about 

 four or five months, the driest and hottest part of the year, between their seasons of incubation. The 

 composition of the mound appears to influence the colouring of a thin epidermis with which the eggs 

 are covered, and which readily chips off, showing the true shell to be white. Those deposited in the 

 black soil are always of a dark reddish-brown, while those from the sandy hillocks near the beach are 

 of a dirty yellowish- white ; they differ a good deal in size, but in form they all assimilate, both ends 

 being equal. They are three inches and five lines long, by two inches and three lines broad." * 



As to the very curious method of incubation adopted in the case of these Mound-birds, or 

 Megapodidee, the common supposition has been that these birds, with their large feet and long curved 

 claws, raked together earth, dead leaves, rotten sticks, stones, and so on, till perhaps they formed 

 a mound as much as six feet high and twelve feet long. This they frequently did in company, and 

 the " incubator " thus formed was shared by a number, who laid their eggs in it, and left them to be 

 hatched by the heat evolved by the decaying substances. Compare, however, with the above account 

 the latest observations on the subject, namely, those of Mr. H. N. Moseley, F.R.S. He says, in his 

 " Naturalist on the Challenger" that " the eggs [of Megapoclius] were buried in the clean sand, at a 

 depth of three-and-a-half or four feet, and with no mound over them, or vegetable rubbish of any 

 kind. The eggs are thus hatched by the simple warmth of the sand received from the sun, and 



retained during the night, just in the same manner as turtle's eggs are hatched I had 



always supposed that these birds and their allies hatched their eggs by means of the heat derived 

 from decayed vegetable matter." 



* Gould's " Handbook to the Birds of Australia," Vol. II., p. 171. 



