jgirli^icire 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. V January — February, 1903 No. 1 



The Mound - Building Birds of Australia 



BY A. J. CAMPBELL. Melbourne 



Author of "Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds" 

 With photographs from nature 



ENCOURAGED by the appreciation of my article on ' The Bower 

 Birds of AustraHa, ' which appeared in BiRD-LoRE for October, 

 igoo, I have ventured to give a sketch of our mound -build- 

 ing birds. 



The mound -building birds are ornithological curiosities, not only of 

 Australia, but of the world. There are three kinds, namely, the Mallee 

 Fowl {Lipoa ocellata) , the Brush Turkey {Catheturus lath ami) , and the 

 Scrub Fowl {Megapodius duperreyi) . 



The Mallee Fowl, a remarkable and truly solitary creature, dwells 

 in the drier and more arid scrubs of parts of the southern half of Australia, 

 being partial to the mallee (a species of dwarf eucalypt) timber tracts; 

 hence the common name ' Mallee ' Hen or Fowl. This bird resembles 

 very much in size and shape a grayish mottled domestic Turkey, but it is 

 smaller, more compact, and stouter in the legs. It has no wattle about 

 its head, but there is a tuft of dark feathers falling back gracefully from 

 the crown. On account of this tuft some of the western native tribes 

 call the bird ' Ngow-oo,' ' Ngnoweer,' meaning a tuft of feathers. 

 Some of the eastern tribes called the bird ' Louan 'or 'Low-an-ee.' 



The most striking feature in the economy of the Mallee Fowl is that 

 it does not incubate its eggs in the usual manner of birds, but deposits 

 them in a large mound of sand, where they are hatched by the sun's rays 

 together with the heat engendered by decomposing vegetation placed 

 underneath the sand and eggs. In constructing a new nest or mound, 

 the bird selects a slight hollow, — invariably a shallow water-track in almost 

 impenetrable scrub or bush. The spot is hollowed or scooped out and 

 filled with dead leaves or other vegetable matter. Then all is com- 

 pletely enveloped with sand, which is scraped up for several yards around; 



