MEGAPODIDiE. 
S3 
with their long strong claws. Their food principally consists 
of seeds and insects. The eggs ai;G of a fine dark cream- 
colour and of a very large size, three of them weighing nearly 
as much as a full-grown bird. According to the account given 
by the Malays, each bird lays about eight or ten eggs at each 
tinae of breeding, and their nests are merely large heaps of 
shells and rubbish, deposited over the sandy soil, in which 
the eggs are buried to the depth of about eighteen inches. 
Since receiving this account, however, we have had an oppor- 
tunity of inspecting a very large and perfect nest, or breeding- 
hill, and found it to be about twenty feet in diameter, and 
composed of sand, earth, and sticks ; it was close to the 
beach, just within the jungle, and scarcely above high-water 
mark, and appeared to have been used for many years. The 
boatmen seemed to have no clue to what part of the hillock 
contained eggs, but said that they were never without some, 
when frequented at all ; they sought for nearly half an hour 
in vain before they found one, and then they got about a 
dozen together ; they were buried at a depth of from one to 
three feet hi an upright position, and the ground about them 
was astonishingly hard. The eggs thus deposited are left to 
be hatched hj' the heat of the sun, and this, the Malays as- 
sert, requires betvt'een three and four months to complete ■. 
those obtained from this heap were brought home and buried 
in a box of sand, and a month or two afterwards it was dis- 
covered that they had all hatched, but that from neglecting 
to place them in a proper (f <?. probably an upright) position, 
the chicks could not get up through the sand, and had all 
perished. When hatched, the chicks are almost entirely 
fledged ; even the long quills being, as the Malays say, 
“ needled.'"* When first dug out, some of the eggs had lost 
much of thvilr outer colour, wliich appeared to have scaled olT, 
leaving only a white chalky shell. On a former occasion 
some eggs were brought by the natives, and were buried in a 
box of sand and exposed to the weather : at the end of about 
three weeks one of the chicks was hatched ; a Malay who 
saw it emerge, said, that it just shook off the sand and ran 
away so fast that it was with difficulty caught; it then ap- 
peared to be nearly half-grown, and from the first fed itself 
o 
