on the Hatching & Rearing of the Brush Turkeys at the Zoo. 295


longer, in the mound before making an appearance, as the three

others, which hatched in the incubator, were not nearly so

advanced when hatched. The beak and feet are strong, of a

dark horn—nearly black—hue.


The young have the same digging propensity as the adults,,

and nothing pleased them so much as a heap of peat, upon which

I scattered their food ; for they picked up quite large pieces with

first one foot and then the other, throwing them backwards in

order to get at fragments of food which had fallen between the

lumps. They invariably commenced with the left foot, and

would rarely touch the food on the flat ground whilst there were

any particles left on the peat.


Their pugnacity is evinced at an early stage. The day

after the first chick made its appearance a second hatched in

the incubator, which, when dried off thoroughly I placed with

its elder relative, who immediately dropped its wings into a

fighting attitude and pounced upon the new arrival. They soon,

however, got to be good friends.


After finding the chick, we decided not to go any further

with the e-xcavatiou, thinking it would be more interesting to

have the young emerge from the heap themselves ; so we replaced

the material, and left it as near as possible as we found it.


After waiting another fortnight, and no more chicks¬

appearing, I decided to thoroughly overhaul the mound.

Almost the first thing we came across was a dead young one,

which caused us to come to the conclusion that the density of

the materials had prevented it finding its way out, and that the

remainder of the eggs had better be removed to an incubator.

Seven of these were discovered, two of which, containing living

embryos, were unfortunately broken in unearthing. Of the

remaining five two hatched and three were addled.


To emphasize the fact as to the thinness of the shell, I

may remark that the young ones do not chip round the upper

part of the egg when emerging, as is the case with other

gallinaceous, and most birds, but appear to give a violent wriggle

and shatter the whole shell, although they still remain encased

in the inner membrane, which is not torn open for some hours

afterwards.



