CHAP, ii.] IN THE YOUNG OF VARIOUS CREATURES. 65 



birds which are hatched in warm nests, and there fed 

 and brooded by their parents, want neither thick cloth- 

 ing nor locomotive power ; accordingly, they are for a 

 time weak and half-naked, but furnished with a wide 

 mouth and gullet, and with a powerful digestion, to re- 

 ceive and make the most of every morsel which is brought 

 to them by their heaven-instructed nurses. Contrast 

 these feeble, gaping nestlings, with a brood of little 

 Geese of any species, which from the first have to crop 

 for themselves a day-long meal of grass, to the tenderest 

 of which, often growing in low damp spots, they are led 

 by their parents a few hours after escaping from the 

 shell. These are covered, as by defensive armour, with 

 a thick, stiff, coating of down, or rather fur, which hardly 

 any wet will touch ; and their bill, instead of being soft 

 and gaping, is almost as efficient a pair of shears as 

 that of Geese a twelvemonth old. That very extraor- 

 dinary Australian bird the Leipoa ocellata, for a know- 

 ledge of whose strange habits we are indebted to Sir 

 George Grey and Mr. Gould, does not sit upon its 

 eggs, but makes a vast heap of sand, dried grass, &c., 

 of such dimensions as to be mistaken by the first dis- 

 coverers for a tumulus, or grave-heap of the Natives. The 

 temperature of this fermenting mass, though not so 

 warm as would be thought necessary for the purpose of 

 hatching eggs, is still sufficient for the object required. 

 " There are two great peculiarities about these eggs, 

 besides their immense size in proportion to that of the 

 bird, the average weight of the egg being eight ounces, 

 while the Leipoa appears to have as large a body as the 

 female Turkey, but is shorter on the legs : the first 

 peculiarity is, that both ends are of nearly the same 

 size ; which form is peculiarly adapted to the position 



