120 THE NICOBAR MEGAPODE. 



ling of a hen that has recently laid an egg, and is anxious to 

 publish the stupendous fact in nature's pages ; it may be sylla- 

 bled in a variety of ways, but several of us agreed that on the 

 whole kuk-a-kuk-kuk ! most nearly represented their chuckling 

 cackling call. 



The stomachs of all we examined contained tiny land shells 

 (sometimes with the animals not yet dead), larvae of insects, 

 dissolved matter, apparently vegetable, and minute fragments and 

 particles of quartz or other hard rocks. 



When by any fortunate chance you can get them up, they are 

 very easy to shoot. They are most abundant where the soil is light 

 and sandy, and the ground cover at the bases of the magnifi- 

 cent trees that overshadow one from above, is therefore com- 

 paratively penetrable, and in such localities, with a few good 

 dogs, they would afford very pretty shooting. 



As game they are unsurpassed. The flesh, very white, very 

 sweet and juicy, loaded with fat, is delicious, a sort of juste 

 milieu between that of a fat Norfolk Turkey and a fat Norfolk 

 Pheasant. 



The eggs, too, are quite equal, if not superior, to those of the 

 Pea-Fowl, and to my mind higher commendation cannot be given. 



BUT IT is in regard to their nidification that these birds 

 possess the highest interest. Moderate-sized birds as they are, 

 they gradually manage to accumulate tumuli, that would not 

 have done discredit to the final resting-place of some ancient 

 British hero, and in these they bury their eggs and leave them 

 to be hatched by the heat evolved, as I believe, by fermenta- 

 tion, in the interior of these mounds. 



These mounds are never, as our artist has by mistake repre- 

 sented one, on the bare sea-shore ; they are always at least just 

 completely inside the belt of jungle that fringes the high water 

 mark, and they are never so high in proportion to their breadth 

 as he has depicted. 



Both Davison and myself took great pains to learn all we 

 could about the nidification of these, in this respect, queer birds, 

 and I will quote notes of ours that we recorded at the time. 



He says : " I have seen a great many mounds of this bird. 

 Usually they are placed close to the shore, but on Bompoka and 

 on Katchall I saw two mounds some distance inland in the 

 forest. They were composed of dried leaves, sticks, &c, mixed 

 with earth, and were very small, compared with others near the 

 sea-coast, not being above three feet high and about twelve or 

 fourteen feet in circumference ; those built near the coast are 

 composed chiefly of sand mixed with rubbish, and vary very 

 much in size, but average about five feet high and thirty feet in 

 circumference; but I met with one exceptionally large one on 

 the Island of Trinkut, which must have been at least eight feet 

 high and quite sixty feet in circumference. It was apparently 



