56 The Zoologist — February, 1866. 



head and neck in a straight line with its body, remaining in this posi- 

 tion as stalionary and motionless as the branch upon which it is 

 perched ; if, however, it becomes fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal 

 but laborious flight for about a hundred yards, with its legs hanging 

 down as if broken. I did not myself detect any note or cry; but, from 

 the native's description and imitation of it, it much resembles the 

 clucking of the domestic fowl, ending with a scream like that of the 

 peacock. 



"'I observed that the birds continued to lay from the latter part of 

 August to March, when I left that part of the country ; and, according 

 to the testimony of the natives, there is only an interval of about four 

 or five months, the dryest and hottest part of the year, between their 

 seasons of incubation. The composition of the mound appears to 

 influence the colouring of a thin epidermis with which the eggs are 

 covered, and which readily chips off", showing the true shell to be 

 white; those deposited in the black soil are always of a dark reddish 

 brown, while those from the sandy hillocks near the beach are of a 

 dirty yellowish white ; they differ a good deal in size^ut in form they 

 all assimilate, both ends being equal ; they are three inches and five 

 lines long by two inches and three lines broad.' 



"The following interesting account of the breeding-places of this 

 remarkable bird has been transmitted to me by Mr. John Macgillivray 

 as the result of his observations on Nogo or Megapodius Island in 

 Endeavour Straits. It will be seen that its range is more extensive 

 than I had assigned to it : — ' The most southern locality known to me 

 for this singular bird is Haggerston Island (in lat. 1-2^ 3' South), where 

 I observed several of its mounds of very large size, but did not see any 

 of the birds. During the survey of Endeavour Straits in H.M.S. 

 ' Bramble,' I was more fortunate, having succeeded in procuring both 

 male and female on the island marked 'Nogo' upon the chart, where 

 I resided for several days for that sole purpose. On this small island, 

 not more than half a mile in length, rising at one extremity into a low 

 rounded hill densely covered with jungle (or what in New South Wales 

 would be called ' brush '), three mounds, one of them apparently 

 deserted before completion, were found. The two others were 

 examined by Mr. Jukes and myself. The most recent, judging from 

 the smoothness of its sides and the want of vegetable matter, was 

 situated upon the crest of the hill, and measured 8 feet in height (or 

 13|^ from the base of the slope to the surauiit) and 77 feet in circum- 

 ference. In this mound, after several hours' hard digging into a 



