The Mound-builders 29 



tame that I have seen a native digghig out eggs, and birds 

 digging fresh holes to lay in within a few yards of one 

 another. Dogs do great damage by destroying the eggs 

 and birds. The natives consequently spear all the dogs 

 caught trespassing in the laying-yards. Another enemy to 

 the eggs is the large Monitor Lizard ( Varanus indicus) ; in 

 many of the yards the marks left by their tails, like that 

 made by a stick drawn along the sand, may always be 

 noticed." 



The Mound-builders are, as a rule, birds of very dull and 

 sober brown plumage, and beyond a little bright colour on 

 the heads and necks they show but slight ornamentation in 

 colour. An exception may be made in the case of Wallace's 

 Megapode {Eulipoa ivallaci), which is rather prettily banded, 

 and the Moleo-bird of Celebes {M egacephalum nialeo) rejoices 

 in a lead-coloured knob on the head and in a delicately- 

 tinted pink breast. The Moleo is supposed to lay about eight 

 eggs in the season, and therefore Dr. Wallace believes that 

 three months must elapse between the laying of the first 

 and the last egg. The latter is large for the size of 

 the bird, and it is suggested by the above-named author 

 that as the egg fills up the lower cavity of the body, and 

 the remaining eight or ten eggs are only of the size of small 

 peas, the long period which elapses between the laying of 

 each egg and the placing of them in a mound, is a wise 

 provision of Nature, as the birds could not hatch them out 

 in the ordinary way, while they would certainly starve if 

 their nidification lasted over three months. One great 

 difference between the method of hatching the eggs by the 

 Moleo as compared with that of the other Megapodes, seems 

 to be that it never constructs a big mound like the gener- 

 ality of these birds, but, on the contrary, digs a pit in the 

 sand to a depth of one to three feet, and therein deposits 

 its egg. It is also particular as to the kind of sand it adopts 

 for the hatching of the egg, and Dr. Meyer says that in 



