46 The Zoologist — February, 1866. 



nests with eggs the white ant was very numerous, making its little 

 covered galleries of earth around and attached to the shell, thus 

 showing a beautiful provision of Nature iu preparing the necessary 

 tender food for the young bird on its emergence : one of the eggs I 

 have preserved shows the white ants' tracks most beautifidly : the 

 largest mound I saw, and which appeared as if in a state of prepara- 

 tion for eggs, measured forty-five feel in circumference, and if rounded 

 in proportion on the lop, would have been full five feet in height. I 

 remarked in all the mounds not ready for the reception of eggs, the 

 inside or vegetable portion was always wet and cold, and I imagine, 

 from the slate of others, that the bird turns out the whole of the 

 materials to dry before depositing its eggs and covering ihein up with 

 the soil ; in both cases where 1 found eggs the upper part of the 

 mound was perfectly and smoothly rounded over, so that any one 

 passing it without knowing the singular habit of the bird might very 

 readilv suppose it lo be an ant-hill : mounds in this stale always con- 

 tain eggs within, while liiose without eggs are not only not rounded 

 over, but have the centres so scooped out that they form a hollow. 

 The eggs are deposited in a very different manner from those of the 

 Megapodius ; instead of each being placed in a separate excavation in 

 different parts of the mound, ihey are laid directly in the centre, all at 

 the same depth, separated only by about three inches of earth, and so 

 placed as to form a circle. I regret we were so early ; had we been 

 a week later the probability is 1 sliould have found the circle of eggs 

 complete. Is it not singular that all the eggs were equally fresh, as if 

 their development was arrested until the full number was deposited, 

 so that the young might all appear about the same time ? No one, 

 considering the immense size of the egg, can for a moment suppose 

 the bird capable of laying more than one without at least the inter- 

 mission of a day, and perhaps even more. 



" Like those of the Megapodius, they are covered with an e])idermis- 

 like coaling, and are certainly as large, being three inches and three- 

 quarters in length by two and a half in breadth ; they vary in colour 

 from a very light brown lo a light salmon. During the whole day we 

 did not succeed in obtaining sight of the bird, although we saw nume- 

 rous tracks of its feet and many places where it had been scratching; 

 we also saw its tracks on the sand when crossing the dried beds of the 

 swamps, at least two miles from the breeding-thicket, which proves 

 that the bird, in procuring its food, does not confine itself to the 

 brushes around its nest, but merely resorts to them for the purpose of 



