754 MR. J. J. LISTER ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE 



the Fiji and Samoa Islands. It is desciibed in Findlay's South 

 Pacific Directory * as a volcanic island with black lava rocks all 

 round the shores. It is 3 to 3| miles across, well wooded, and 

 some 500 to 600 ft. high. In the centre is a brackish-water lake 

 at sea-level in which are hot springs. Friedlander t, who visited 

 the island in 1897, describes his visit to the nesting places of the 

 birds, which are on the shores of this lake. He had to swim 

 round some of the rocky points to reach them, and found the 

 temperature of the water that of a warm bath, and the rocks 

 under water too hot, in places, to rest his hands on them. He 

 says the island is an intermittently active crater, largely composed 

 of basaltic rock. An eruption occurred in 1886, when the whole 

 island was covered with ashes, and the Megapodes were nearly 

 exterminated. Owing to the 'tabu' imposed by the chief their 

 numbers had increased again, so that there was a fair number at 

 the time of his visit. The birds do not build mounds, as do many 

 of their congeners, but lay in holes which they excavate in the 

 volcanic sand. He is inclined to attribute the heat of the sand, 

 which he found on digging for the eggs, to the volcanic action. 

 We may note in passing that P. & F. Sarasin J found that the 

 Maleo (Jlegacephalon maleo) of Celebes lays in the neighbourhood 

 of hot springs, as well as on the sea-shore. 



The birds of Niuafou were collected by Mr. F. Hiibner and 

 described by Dr. Finsch §. With the exception of the Megapode 

 all belong to common Tongan species, but Finsch remarks on the 

 absence from the collection of four species [Ptilotis caruncidata, 

 Halcyon sacra, Lalage maculosa, and Golluricincla keinei) which 

 besides being common in Tonga are present, or represented by 

 allied species, in Samoa and Fiji. At first sight it would appear 

 that the absence of these species from Niuafou might be at- 

 tributed to the destructive eruptions of the volcano, but as these 

 species ai-e unrecorded from the not very distant group of Uvea 

 (Wallis Id.), their absence from Niuafou cannot certainly be 

 attributed to that cause. It must be admitted, however, that a 

 small volcano, still in intermittent activity, is the last place on 

 which the remnants of an ancient fauna would be expected to 

 survive. Had the bird been found on the high and ancient land 

 masses of Fiji or Samoa, the case against this view would not 

 have been so strong, but the birds of these islands have now been 

 so fully collected as to make it in the highest degree unlikely 

 that so large and useful a bird as a Megapode should have been 

 overlooked in then). 



The Niuafovi species, Megapodius jJritchardi, was described by 

 the late Sir Walter Buller in his Supplement || to the ' Birds of 

 New Zealand,' and included, under the name of " The Southern 



* 3rd edition, ji. 558. 



t " Ueber die Nestlocher d. Mec/apodius pritchardii auf der Insel Niuafou." 

 Oniithologische Monatsbeiichte, vii. p. 37, Berlin, 1899. 

 t Zeits. d. Gesellschaft f. Erdkunde, Berlin, 1894, pp. 375, 388, 396 & 398. 

 § Z. S . 1877, p. 782. 

 II Vol. i. p. 31. 



