6o Mattinglev, Thermometer-Bird or Mallee-Fowl. [ist^'"oct 



labour entailed in scraping and gathering together the enormous 

 quantity of material which forms it is prodigious. But what 

 is still more astonishing is the amount of labour which devolves 

 upon the female bird every time she lays a fresh egg, since she 

 has to scratch out the egg-chamber and refill it each time, and 

 as she lays in ordinary seasons about 14 eggs, she has to reopen 

 and refill it 14 times. This reopening and refilling, together 

 with the necessity of repeatedly opening up and refilling 

 the egg-chamber after the bird has ceased laying, so as to keep 

 the material around the eggs loose, whereby sufficient oxygen 

 can be supplied to the embryo in the egg, is a further cause of 

 wonderment. The time occupied by the bird in cleaning out 

 the egg-chamber and preparing it to receive the &gg and 

 refilling it again after depositing her Qgg, is from three- 

 quarters of an hour to an hour. Occasionally the male 

 assists the hen to open out the mound. About 9 o'clock a.m. 

 the Mallee-Hen visits her mound, and between that hour and 10 

 a.m. she lays her egg. The same mound is not used every year 

 by its original architects, since the Lipoa does not breed every 

 season. In Victoria during the month of April and May the 

 birds usually start to dig out the old mound or else construct, a 

 new one. The date of commencement varies according to the 

 season and locality, but the governing factor is the rainfall, on 

 which the Lipoa is dependent for the moisture to soak the 

 vegetable material of the egg-chamber, as well as for the 

 subsequent food supply. During periods of drought egg-laying 

 is suspended, and although a season may have started 

 propitiously, yet should a dry atmospheric condition manifest 

 itself, the Lipoa leaves off depositing its eggs, influenced, no 

 doubt, by the change wrought in the food supply as well as by 

 the condition of the vegetable material of the egg-chamber, 

 which, owing to the extreme dryness of the air, has become 

 so devoid of moisture that it probably would not set up 

 sufficient heat to incubate its eggs with any degree of certainty 

 owing to the fermentation being arrested. During the greater 

 part of the time of incubation the heat of the egg-chamber is 

 many degrees greater than the surrounding amosphere, and ranges 

 from 90 to 97 degrees Fahrenheit, whilst the external covering 

 of sand on the mound often becomes so hot from the heat of 

 the sun's rays that it is extremely painful for a person to recline 

 on it. When starting to open up the mound to deposit its eggs 

 the bird scratches out a channel all around the exterior of the 

 summit of the mound about a foot from the top, (See 

 illustration.) Over the outer edge of this the birds scrape the 

 material resting on top of the egg-chamber, and when this has 

 been removed the mound presents the appearance of a miiniature 

 volcano or funnel. Usually in dull or wet weather the birds cap 

 the peak of the mound with sticks placed crosswise in a careless 



