BIRDS 451 



have here an exceedingly ancient habit. The family is very 

 characteristic of the Australian region, but ranges north to the 

 Philippines, and west to the Moluccas. The simplest method 

 adopted is to lay the eggs among rotting leaves, as in a New 

 Hebrides species (^Megapodius Layardi), or to dig a hole in the 

 sand for their reception, as in a form {M. eremitd) native to the 

 Solomon and other islands. From this we pass to the " mound- 

 building" species, of which a typical example is afforded by the 

 Scrub-Turkey {Catheturus or Talegallus Lathami), native to East 

 Australia, of which the domestic arrangements are thus described 

 by Semon (in In the Australian Bush) : — " Within the scrubs one 

 will look in vain for any bright colour, a sombre green reigning 

 everywhere. The ground between the trees is almost bare of 

 vegetation, strewed only with fallen trunks, dead branches, and 

 fragments of plants. Here the 'scrub-turkey' . . . builds its nest 

 by scraping together with its powerful claws great quantities of 

 vegetable substance, mould, grass, leaves, branches, and mush- 

 rooms, out of which it builds an enormous mound of a flattish 

 shape. The diameter of these mounds varies from 4 to 5 

 yards at their base, their height from i^ to 2 yards, so that 

 the material they represent would make up several cart-loads. 

 It is undecided as yet whether one pair or a whole party of birds 

 combine to construct these mighty nests. The circumstance of 

 one's occasionally finding more than thirty eggs buried in one 

 mound leads me to suppose the latter. The eggs are laid into 

 these hills at a depth of one or of half a yard, and are incubated 

 by the warmth arising from fermentation of the rotting vegetable 

 substances. The parent birds do not abandon their brood entirely 

 during this process, but appear once or several times during the 

 day to air their eggs. They examine whether the places they 

 occupy have an appropriate temperature, or whether this has 

 grown either too hot or too cool, and they help the chickens ready 

 to slip out from the depths of this hatching oven. In these scrubs 

 I was able to note the interesting fact that the birds beg'an to 

 build their mounds already in August, while the laying of eggs 

 takes place only about Christmas-time. . . . The facts that the hills 

 are so extensive, and the decay of material in the lower parts 

 of the nest is already so far advanced when the laying of the eggs 

 commences, has led to the conclusion that the same mound is 

 employed several years successively, being fitted up every time by 



