30 Wonders of the Bird World 



Wallace Bay, in Celebes, the bird chooses the black 

 volcanic deposits in preference to the white sand. 



Although the habits of the Mound-builders have de- 

 servedly attracted the attention of naturalists as one of the 

 most remarkable phenomena of nature, there has never been 

 a more intelligent account written than that of Dr. Meyer 

 and Mr. Wiglesworth in their lately published ' Birds of 

 Celebes' (vol. ii. p. 68 1), and as it contains a number of new 

 and hitherto unpublished conclusions, I make no apology 

 for quoting it in full. The authors write of the Moleo — 



" Unlike the Mcgapoduis, the Megacephalon does not 

 raise a heap of rubbish in which to lay its eggs, but sinks a 

 pit in the sand which it afterwards fills in, burying its egg 

 to a depth of from one to three feet. One of its favourite 

 breeding-grounds has been made known by Dr. Wallace in 

 a spot on the north coast between the islands of Lembeh 

 and Banka, to which Dr. Guillemard and his companions 

 have given the name of ' Wallace Bay.' Meyer has 

 described it as a large irregular bay, with black sand, which 

 did not consist of sand in the common term, but of small 

 stones up to the size of a bean, into which the foot sank up 

 to the ankle. It seems to mark, as Wallace first observed, 

 an ancient lava stream of the Klaba Volcano, which has 

 flown down a valley into the sea, and become decomposed 

 and triturated into loose black sand. 



"In the Bone Valley, Von Rosenberg noticed that the 

 eggs stand on end upright in the sand in which they are 

 laid. According to Wallace, a number of females lay in the 

 same hole, each egg being that of a different bird: but 

 whether he makes this statement from personal observation, 

 or after the assertions of the natives (which are utterly 

 unreliable), or from the finding of many fresh eggs ^ in the 

 same hole, we are not told. Like Dr. Guillemard, Dr- 



' Many days appear to elapse between the deposit of the successive 



