266 MOUND BIRDS 



however, was not the work of a single season; for this 

 species use and add to the same mound year after 

 year. 



The eggs having been deposited, the parent birds go 

 about their business, which is not that of incubation. 

 They act as if they had a perfect understanding of what 

 happens when vegetable matter rapidly decays, and trust 

 to the generation of enough heat, not only to preserve life 

 in the eggs, but to hatch them. Still, all this prescience 

 would be in vain, unless some precaution were taken to 

 prevent these neglected eggs from addling. Eggs laid 

 upon their sides in a patent incubator would never hatch 

 unless regularly turned. The yolk would penetrate the 

 white, adhere to the shell, and die. This seems to be 

 perfectly well known to the mother megapode, for she 

 arranges her long, thin-shelled eggs separately with the 

 small end downwards. Nor is this the end of the mystery. 

 The chicks are hatched fully equipped for the business 

 of life, with wing-feathers well developed and capable of 

 almost immediate flight; but it is not easy to under- 

 stand how they retain life while burrowing through 

 the steaming mass of fermenting material to the outer 

 air. 



Now, all this may be read in any encyclopaedia or work 

 on Australian ornithology, and is worthy of aU credence, 

 resting as it does on the testimony of trustworthy and 

 scientific witnesses. But the mystery is brought home 

 to one by seeing mound birds at work in an English wood- 

 land, pursuing their traditional craft with wholly un- 

 familiar materials and environment. It was my privilege 

 lately (1903) to see five or six of these huge mound-nests 

 in the Duke of Bedford's park at Woburn Abbey. In that 



