Ground and Underground Nests 



themselves are by no means large. Cartloads of material 

 are used in building, and the mounds may measure more 

 than one hundred feet in circumference. 



Wallace, in The Malay Archipelago, thus describes the 

 habits of these birds : " Of this rubbish the mound-birds 

 form immense mounds, often six or eight feet high and 

 twenty or thirty feet in diameter, which they are enabled 

 to do with comparative ease by means of their large feet, 

 with which they can grasp and throw backwards a 

 quantity of material. In the centre of this mound, at a 

 depth of two or three feet, the eggs are deposited, and 

 are hatched by the gentle heat produced by the fermenta- 

 tion of the vegetable matter of the mound. When I first 

 saw these mounds, in the island of Lombok, I could 

 hardly believe that they were made by such small birds, 

 but I afterwards met with them frequently, and have once 

 or twice come upon the birds engaged in making them. 

 They run a few steps backwards, grasping a quantity of 

 loose material in one foot, and throw it a long way 

 behind them. When once properly buried, the eggs 

 seem to be no more cared for, the young birds working 

 their way up through the heap of rubbish and running 

 off into the forest." This habit of leaving the chicks to 

 their own devices is foreign to most birds, in which, as a 

 class, the maternal instinct is very highly developed. 



The Australian brush-turkey builds a somewhat similar 

 nest. Like the mound-birds, the brush-turkeys make use 

 of their feet for building operations. Their first care is 

 to trace a circle of large radius, and round this they walk, 

 picking up leaves, twigs and grass as they go, and 

 throwing them to the centre of the circle they are de- 

 scribing. Narrowing their circle by degrees, they finally 

 build up a good-sized conical mound. Having constructed 

 a framework, so to speak, they proceed to hollow out the 

 centre, and this they do to a depth of a couple of feet or 

 more. In this hollow the eggs are deposited in. a circle, 

 with their pointed ends downwards. The eggs are then 

 H 113 



