Birds of Celebes: Megapodidae. 
683 
one could not keep the hand and which had formed a considerable pool, Maleo- 
pits were again found. We had them dug out and procured two eggs for our 
rapidly diminishing larder. Finally we came across a third [fourth] warm spring, and 
observed Maleo pits near it also”. Later the Sarasins found Moleo-pits also 
on the Lokon volcano in ground strongly heated by hot steam. 
Thus the Drs. P. Sc F. Sarasin have established a most striking instance of 
avian wisdom. In the case of the Moleo breeding in the hot volcanic sand of 
Wallace Bay, it might always be urged that the bird at first laid everywhere 
indiscriminately, but that young were produced only from the eggs which chanced 
to have been deposited in the black sand, but it iS going too far to apply this 
suggestion to the case of the hot springs of the interior; moreover, it brings no 
explanation why the young hatched in the black sand returned to the same spot 
to breed. Birds in their philoprogenitive carefulness have learnt that theii eggs 
must be kept warm, or they will perish, and the Moleo has discovered the best 
means in its power for procuring the welfare of the young, which, peihaps foi 
the following reasons, it is unable to look after in the usual manner of biids. 
Mr. Wallace believes that a period of 10—12 days elapses between the 
laying of the successive eggs of the Moleo (the natives asseited 13) and that 
the bird lays about eight eggs in a season, “so that an interval of three months 
elapses between the laying of the first and last egg”. The breeding season was 
indicated by Mr. Wallace as the months of August and September, but Dr. 
Guillemard notes that, according to the natives, the period was much more 
extended. When Meyer visited Wallace Bay in May, 1871 , no eggs indeed 
were found, but the birds were there in troops. Rosenberg says the bird breeds 
in the Bone valley from March to July; in the higher parts of this valley the 
Sarasins obtained the eggs in January. Very probably the breeding period 
varies with the season, whether rainy or dry, and this often differs on opposite 
coasts, and in the mountains and on the lowlands (see Introduction), ihe great 
number of days which is supposed to elapse between the laying of one egg 
arid the next is believed to be necessary for the development of the unusually 
big egg, which, as Dr. Guillemard says, weighs 8 V 2 to Q'A ozs. (about ’. 4 ko;, 
and which in females killed by Mr. Wallace before they had laid, completely 
filled up the lower cavity of the body, the remaining eight 01 ten eggs in the 
ovary being about the size of small peas. Mr. Wallace shows that the nesting 
habits of the Moleo may be accounted for by the peculiarity in its organization, 
which causes it to lay great eggs with considerable intervals between^ them : 
owing to the long time which must pass before the whole batch is laid, t e 
bird cannot hatch them in the ordinary way, for its peculiar food (consisting 0 
fallen fruits')) would become exhausted and the bird would starve. In consequence 
therefore of this slowness in laying “they must quit their eggs to obtain their 
own subsistence — they must bury them to preserve them from wild animals . 
•1 Rosenberg found in the stomach remains of snails, insects, and the iruit oi Pangitim edule ,a high 
tree, belonging to the Pixineae, cultivated nearly everywhere in the East Indian Archipelago). 
’ 86 * 
