18/6.] NOHTH-EASTERN QUEENSLAND. 117 



during my visit. They are still plentiful in the New-South-Wales 

 scrubs. I found that two or more females visited the same mound 

 to lay their eggs in ; and when this is the case the mound is often 

 twice as large as an ordinary mound. It seems probable that 

 several individuals assist in scratching the mound together, when 

 a space often 50 yards in diameter (on level ground) is found 

 cleared of almost every fallen leaf and twig. The mounds are often 

 6 feet in height, and 12 to 14 wide at the base ; sometimes they are 

 more conical. The central portion consists of decayed leaves mixed 

 with fine debris, the next of coarser and less rotted materials ; and 

 the outside is a mass of recently gathered leaves, sticks, and twigs 

 not showing signs of decay. In opening the nest these are easily 

 removed, and must be carefully pushed backwards over the sides, 

 beginning at the top. Having cleared these, and obtained plenty 

 of room, remove the semidecayed strata ; and below it, where the 

 fermentation has begun, in a mass of light fine leaf-mould will 

 be found the eggs placed with the thin end downwards, often in a 

 circle, with three or four in the centre, about 6 inches apart. At 

 one side, where the eggs have been first laid, they will probably be 

 found more or less incubated ; but in the centre, where the eggs are 

 placed last, quite fresh ; and if only one pair of birds have laid in the 

 mound, about twelve to eighteen eggs will be the complement, and will 

 be found arranged as described above. On the other hand, if several 

 females resort to the same nest, the regularity will be greatly inter- 

 fered with, and two or three eggs in different stages of development 

 will be found close to one another, some quite fresh, others within a 

 few days of being hatched. There are usually ten eggs in the first 

 layer, five or six in the second, three or four only in the centre. I 

 found that the females return every second day to lay, but never suc- 

 ceeded in ascertaining which of the parent birds opens the nest. 

 The aborigines informed me that the male bird always performs this 

 office ; and I usually found my black boys very correct in their 

 statements of this kind. After robbing a nest it is necessary to 

 replace the different layers as they are found ; if the lowermost is 

 too much mixed up with the others, or the top tumbled into the 

 excavations made in the bottom one, the birds will invariably forsake 

 the mound ; so that I found it always necessary to carefully replace 

 the different layers as I found them. It is not so with the Me- 

 gapodius tumulus, which does not seem to care how much the 

 mound is tumbled about, so that there is sufficient debris left to 

 burrow in ; and, indeed, should there not be, they quietly set to 

 work and scratch it together again. The mounds of the Talleg alius 

 are seldom found on a great incline when a level spot can be obtained. 

 They frequently bring the debris from a considerable distance ; and 

 in one instance on the Richmond river I noticed a place where 

 about a cartload had been scratched through a shallow part of a 

 creek 3 or 4 inches deep in water, and up the other side of the bank 

 to the mound, which was over 40 yards distant. The debris is 

 always thrown behind them. The greatest number of eggs taken 

 from one mound at one time was thirty-six. This was a very old 



