MOUND BIRDS. 



223 



ming-birds iu its gorgeous plumage. The guinea-hen is 

 an African bird. To tiiis group belong the curious mound 

 birds. 



The mound-birds, says Wallace, are a small family of 

 birds, some of them smaller than a hen, found chiefly in 

 Australia and the surrounding islands, and extending as 

 far as the Philippines and northwest Borneo. They are 

 allied to the gallinaceous birds, but differ from these and 

 from all others in never sitting upon their eggs, which they 



Fio. 264. — Californlau Plumed Partridge. 



bury in sand, earth, or rubbish, and leave to be hatched by 

 the heat of the sun or of fermentation. They are all char- 

 acterized by very large feet and long curved claws, and 

 most of the species of Megapodius rake and scratch together 

 all kinds of rubbish, dead leaves, sticks, stones, earth, rot- 

 ten wood, etc., till they form a large mound, often six feet 

 high and twelve feet across, in the middle of which they 

 bury their eggs. A number of birds are said to join in mak- 

 ing these mounds and to lay their eggs together, so that forty 

 or fifty eggs may be found. Allied to the mound-birds is 

 the maleo (^Megacephalon ruiripes). They scratch holes in 



