THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 6 



at least 8 feet high and quite 60 in circumference. It was apparently 

 a very old one, for, from near its centre, grew a tree about 6" in diameter, 

 whose roots penetrated the mound in all directions to within a foot of its 

 summit, some of them being nearly as thick as a man's wrist ; I had the 

 mound dug away almost to the level of the surrounding land, but only 

 got three eggs from it, one quite fresh, and two of which had the chicks 

 somewhat developed. 



" On this mound I shot a Megapode, which had evidently only just 

 laid an egg ; I dissected it, and from a careful examination it would 

 seem that the eggs are laid at long intervals apart, for the largest egg in 

 the ovary was only about the size of a large pea, and the next in size 

 about as big as a small pea. These mounds are also vised by reptiles ; 

 for out of one I dug besides the Megapode's eggs, about a dozen eggs of 

 some large lizard. 



" I made careful enquiries among the Natives about these birds, and 

 from them I learnt that they usually got 4 or 5 eggs from a mound, but 

 sometimes they got as many as ten ; they all assert that only one pair of 

 birds are concerned in the making of a mound, and that they only work 

 at night. When newly-made, the mounds (so I was informed), are 

 small, but are gradually enlarged by the birds, the Natives never dig a 

 mound away, but they probe it with a stick, or with the end of their 

 (laos, and when they find a spot where the stick sinks in easily, they 

 scoop out the sand with their hands, generally, though not always, filling 

 in the holes again after they have abstracted the eggs. The Nicobarese 

 and the Malay and Burmese traders take numbers of these eggs, which 

 they generally cook by placing them in hot ashes, but they also some- 

 times boil them quite hard, and they do not seem to be very particular 

 whether the egg is fresh or contains a chicken in a more or less 

 advanced stage of development. The Nicobarese, at any rate, appear to 

 relish a boiled or roasted chicken out of the egg, quite as much as they 

 do a fresh egg. 



" The eggs are usually buried from 3^ to 4 feet deep, and how the 

 young manage to extricate themselves from the superincumbent mass of 

 soil and rubbish seems a mystery. I could not obtain any information 

 from the natives on this point, but most probably they are assisted by 

 their parents, if not entirely freed by them ; for these latter, so the 

 natives affirm, are always to be found in the vicinity of the mounds 

 where their eggs are deposited. 



" "We obtained about 70 of these eggs, 62 of which were preserved ; 

 these vary much both as regards colour and size, and they undoubtedly 

 darken very materially by being buried in the sand, for I have found 

 that eggs containing chickens in a more or less advanced . stage of 

 development were dark coloured, the depth of shade increasing as the 

 eggs approached the hatching point ; but it does not follow from this 

 that all dark coloured eggs will be found to be not fresh, for very often 

 dark coloured eggs are laid. There are three types of eggs — a dull 

 clayey pink, an earthy yellow, and an earthy brown of several shades. " 



" The surface soil of the mounds only is clay ; at about a foot from 



the surface, the sand feels slightly damp and cold, but as the depth 



increases the sand gets damper, but at the same time increases in 



warmth. " 



Commenting on this account Hnnie then continues in his own 



words : — 



" I cannot myself agree with Davison about the colouring of the 

 eggs. On the contrary the brighest pink egg we got was one which the 

 bird had not even time to bury before she was surprised. Moreover the 



