l62 



SOME AVICULTURAL NOTES. 



W. H. ST. QUINTIN, J.P., F.Z.S., etc., 

 Scampstoit, E. Y'orks. 



(^Continued from, page ii6). 



Of course, the male only, worked. If sometimes, especially 

 at feeding times, when any titbits were going, his treatment 

 of his wife appeared old-fashioned, to do him justice, he never, 

 like the primitive human races, left the hard work to the weaker 

 sex, for he was always busy at something, sometimes at useful 

 work connected with the mound, at other times trying to dig 

 a way under the fence of his enclosure, so as to get at some rival 

 on the other side. 



The incubation of the eggs within the mound depended 

 entirely upon the proper fermentation of the materials of the 

 composing mass. Von Rosenberg found that the temperature 

 in the interior of the movmd of another species, Talegallus 

 fuscirostus, was 93"^ Fahr., when that of the external air was- 

 85° in the shade. Workers of incubators will remember that a 

 temperature of 104 degrees is required to hatch the eggs of the 

 domestic fowl. 



It sometimes seemed that the hen bird miscalculated the- 

 period when the heap would be ready for the eggs, and that the 

 fermentation was past before the eggs had time to hatch. 

 Probably, if there had been several hens, some eggs would have 

 been forthcoming when the fermentation process was at the 

 right point. But I only had one hen, and at the end of the 

 summer, I more than once on opening the mound, found eggs, 

 unhatched with chicks in various stages of development. 

 Though they had a good big run, the birds were partly depen- 

 dent-, for materials on what we gave them, which, of course, had 

 to be in such a condition that it would ferment. Entirely 

 dry stuff, such as straw or dead leaves were of no use. Lawn 

 mowings were eagerly appropriated, but if too much was given 

 the heap heated too fiercely, and did not last warm for the 

 whole incubation period. 



The whole process has been watched, and described both in 

 our* Zoological Gardens, and at the Gardens at Melbourne. 

 I will not repeat what has been already recorded, beyond 

 saying that my birds were so tame that I could stand within a 

 yard of the male when he was doing sentry on his heap, and 

 covi!rl watch him digging down to the close neighbourhood of 



NaturalisF, 



