Birds of Celebes: Megapodidae. 683 



one could not keep the hand and which had formed a considerable pool, Maleo- 

 pits were again found. We had them dug out and procured twQ eggs for our 

 rapidly diminishing larder. Finally we came across a third [fourth] warm spring, and 

 observed Maleo pits near it also". Later the Sarasins found Moleo-pits also 

 on the Lokon volcano in ground strongly heated by hot steam. 



Thus the Drs. P. & F. Sarasin have established a most striking instance of 

 avian wisdom. In the case of the Moleo breeding in the hot volcanic sand of 

 Wallace Bay, it might always be urged that the bird at first laid everywhere 

 indiscriminately, but that young were produced only from the eggs which chanced 

 to have been deposited in the black sand, but it is going too far to apply this 

 suggestion to the case of the hot springs of the interior ; moreover, it brings no 

 explanation why the young hatched in the black sand returned to the same spot 

 to breed. Birds in their philoprogenitive carefulness have learnt that their eggs 

 must be kept warm, or they will perish, and the Moleo has discovered the best 

 means in its power for procuring the welfare of the young, which, perhaps for 

 the following reasons, it is unable to look after in the usual manner of birds. 



Mr. Wallace believes that a period of 10 — 12 days elapses between the 

 laying of the successive eggs of the Moleo (the natives asserted 13) and that 

 the bird lays about eight eggs in a season, "so that an interval of three months 

 elapses between the laying of the first and last egg". The breeding season was 

 indicated by Mr. Wallace as the months of August and September, but Dr. 

 Guillemard notes that, according to the natives, the period was much more 

 extended. When Meyer visited Wallace Bay in May, 1871 , no eggs indeed 

 were found, but the birds were there in troops. Rosenberg says the bird breeds 

 in the Bone valley from March to July; in the higher parts of this valley the 

 Sarasins obtained the eggs in January. Very probably the breeding period 

 varies with the season, whether rainy or dry, and this often differs on opposite 

 coasts, and in the mountains and on the lowlands (see Introduction). The great 

 number of days which is supposed to elapse between the laying of one egg 

 and the next is believed to be necessary for the development of the unusually 

 big egg, which, as Dr. Guillemard says, weighs 8'/2 to Q'A ozs. (about ' 4 ko), 

 and which in females killed by Mr. Wallace before they had laid, completely 

 filled up the lower cavity of the body, the remaining eight or ten eggs in the 

 ovary being about the size of small peas. Mr. Wallace shows that the nesting 

 habits of the Moleo may be accounted for by the peculiarity in its organization, 

 which causes it to lay great eggs with considerable intervals between them : 

 owing to the long time which must pass before the whole batch is laid, the 

 bird cannot hatch them in the ordinary way, for its peculiar food (consisting of 

 fallen fruits ')) would become exhausted and the bird would starve. In consequence 

 therefore of this slowness in laying "they must quit their eggs to obtain their 

 own subsistence — they must bury them to preserve them from wild animals". 



11 Rosenberg found in the stomach remains of snails, insects, and the fruit uf Pangium edule ,3. high 

 tice, belonging to the Bixineae, cultivated nearly everywhere in the East Indian Archipelago). 



S6* 



