How Animals Work. 



in a vertical position, with the smaller end downwards. 

 The sand is then thrown in again, and the mound left 

 in its original form. The egg which has been thus 

 deposited is therefore completely surrounded and en- 

 veloped in soft sand, having from four to six inches 

 of sand between the lower end of the egg and the layer 

 of dead leaves. When a second egg is laid, it is de- 

 posited in precisely the same plane as the first, but at 

 the opposite side of the hole before alluded to. A 

 third egg is placed in the same plane as the others, 

 but, as it were, at the third corner of the square ; 

 the fourth in the fourth corner the figure being in 



o 

 this form : o o. The next four eggs in succession 



o 



are placed in the interstices, but always in the same 

 plane, so that at last there is a circle of eight eggs, all 

 standing upright in the sand, with several inches of sand 

 intervening between each. The male bird assists the 

 female in opening and covering up the mound, and 

 provided the birds are not themselves disturbed, the 

 female continues to lay in the same mound, even after 

 it has been several times robbed. The natives say 

 that the hen bird lays an egg every day." 



The Mound Bird, or Megapode (Megapodius tumulus), 

 does not make a regular hotbed of vegetation like 

 the Mallee Bird; but its mounds frequently attain to 

 very considerable proportions, being added to season 

 after season, until they assume such large proportions 

 that it is "ho uncommon thing to find trees growing 

 upon them as if they were natural hillocks of earth. 

 The birds build these mounds in dense thickets close 



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