Birds of Celebes: Megapodidae. 
681 
small size, and their much longer claws. The Moleo also has some remarkable 
peculiarities in its breeding economy, about which much has been written by 
AVallace (6, d 4), Rosenberg (21), Meyer ("22^, Guillemard f2Pj, and lastly 
by P. & F. Sarasin (37). 
Unlike the Megapodius, the Megacephalon does not raise a heap of rubbish 
in which to lay its eggs but sinks a pit in the sand which it afterwards fills 
in, burying its egg to a depth of about 1 — 3 feet. One of its favourite breed- 
ing grounds has been made known by Mr. Wallace in a spot on the north 
coast between the islands of Lembeh and Banka, to which Dr. Guillemard and 
his companious have given the name of Wallace Bay. Meyer has described 
it as “a large irregular bay, with black sand . . . which did not consist of sand 
in the common term, but of small stones up to the size of a bean into which 
the foot sank up to the ankle”. It seems to mark, as Mr. Wallace first ob- 
served, an ancient lava-stream of the Klabat Volcano, which has flowed down 
a valley into the sea, and become decomposed and triturated into loose black 
sand. Mr. Wallace continues: “In the mass of loose sand thrown up above 
high-water mark are seen numbers of holes four or five feet in diameter. In 
and around these holes, at a depth of one or two feet, the eggs of the Moleos 
are found. There are sometimes only one or two, sometimes as many as seven 
or eight in one hole, but placed each at a distance of 6 — 8 inches from the 
others”. In the Bone valley Rosenberg noticed that the eggs stand on end 
upright in the sand in which they are laid. According to AV all ace a numbei 
of females lay in the same hole, each egg being that of a different bird; but 
whether he makes this statement from personal observation, or after the asser- 
tions of the natives (which are utterly unreliable), or from finding many fresh 
eggs (many days appear to elapse between the deposit of the successive eggs) 
in the same hole, we are not told; like Dr. Guillemard, Mr. Wallace watched 
“the birds at work in pairs, “choosing either a fresh place or an old hole”, but 
it appears still to need confirmation, whether other pairs make use of the same 
hole. Owing to the continuous digging, the surface of the sand must needs 
always be changing in appearance — Guillemard compares it “to nothing better 
than the surface of a rough, confused sea” — and it is conceivable that it would 
be impossible for a female to rediscover the spot where it laid its first egg. 
Although the Moleo is not known to take any further care for the egg oi 
its product after the former has been laid in an upright position and covered 
in deeply with sand, this apparent lack of philoprogenitive affection so strongly 
developed in most birds is counterbalanced by the extraordinary forethought 
— if one may use the word — for the ultimate welfare of the young displayed 
by the parent-birds in selecting the places where their eggs and offspring will 
be left to their fate. The burying of the egg at a considerable depth answers 
two purposes — protection from egg-eating animals'], and the preservation 
irTh^ggTdo not, however, always escape: Meyer shot a young crocodile 3 feet in length (Oocod/te 
biporcatus) busy digging for eggs in a Moleo-hole, and saw other crocodile-diggings. 
Meyer k Wigleswortli. Birds of Celebes {Nov.2<)tJi, 
86 
