Megapodes. 383 



aspect of the Nicobar Megapode is similar 

 to that of a small domestic hen. The 

 young birds are hatched feathered, and 

 can fly almost at once. 



The most remarkable fact about the 

 Megapodes is the mode in which the 

 eggs are incubated. Each pair of birds 

 commences to build a mound by scraping 

 together sand and rubbish. At intervals 

 during the construction of the mound the 

 hen lays an egg, which is covered up, and 

 then another till as many as ten eggs are 

 laid ; the mound is then completed and 

 the eggs left to be hatched. Some mounds 

 are as much as five feet in height and 

 thirty feet in circumference. 



Mr. Hume thus describes the chicken : 

 " The quite young bird, when rather 

 less in size than a quail, is a uniform 

 snuff-brown all over, everywhere densely 

 feathered, even about the throat and neck, 

 and with the feathers of the forehead and 

 the top and back of the head much longer 

 actually ', and not merely relatively, than in 

 the adult ; no bare space in front of or 

 round the eye, no tail developed, only a 

 large bunch of fur- like feathers, but the 

 wings large, strong and well formed ; the 

 bill very short," 



