The Zoologist — February, 1866. 43 



as some suppose, the united labours of several ; the same site appears 

 to be resorted to for several years in succession, the birds adding a 

 fresh supply of materials each succeeding season. 



" The materials composing these mounds are accumulated by the 

 bird grasping a quantity in its foot and throwing it backwards to one 

 common centre, the surface of the ground for a considerable distance 

 being so completely scratched over that scarcely a leaf or a blade of 

 grass is left. The mound being completed, and time allowed for a 

 sufficient heal to be engendered, the eggs are deposited in a circle at 

 the distance of nine or twelve inches from each other, and buried 

 more than an arm's depth, with the large end upwards ; they are 

 covered up as they are laid, and allowed to remain until hatched. 

 I have been credibly informed, both by natives and settlers living near 

 their haunts, that it is not an unusual event to obtain half a bushel of 

 eggs at one time from a single mound ; and I have myself seen a 

 native woman bring to the encampment in her net half as many as the 

 spoils of a foraging excursion to the neighbouring scrub. Some of the 

 natives state that the females are constantly in the neighbourhood of 

 the mound about the time the young are likely to be hatched, and 

 frequently uncover and cover them up again, apparently for the pur- 

 pose of assisting those that may have appeared ; while others have 

 informed me that the eggs are merely deposited, and the young 

 allowed to force their way unassisted. One point has been clearly 

 ascertained, namely, that the young from the hour they are hatched 

 are clothed with feathers, and have their wings sufficiently developed 

 to enable them to fly on to the branches of trees, should they need to 

 do so to escape from danger; they are equally nimble on their legs; 

 in fact, as a moth emerges from a chrysalis, dries its wings and flies 

 away, so the youthful Talegallus, when it leaves the egg, is sufficiently 

 perfect to be able to act independently and procure its own food. 

 This we know from personal observation of the bird in a state of 

 captivity ; several old birds having constructed mounds, in which 

 their eggs have been deposited and their young developed, in the 

 Gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park. I shall always 

 look back with pleasure to the fact of my being the first to make 

 known these singular habits. Although, unfortunately, I was almost 

 too late for the breeding-season, I nevertheless saw several of these 

 hatching mounds, both in the interior of New South Wales and at 

 lUawarra : in every instance they were placed in the most retired and 

 shady glens, and on the slope of a hill, the part above the mound 



