THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
“ The temperature of the mound where the eggs are is about 95 degrees 
or 96 degrees ; the egg is laid early in the morning and every third day, and 
a clutch consists of from 12 to 16 eggs. These are pure white, granulated 
and rather fragile, and are generally placed irregularly round the top of 
the mound. During dry weather the birds add much vegetation to their 
structure, evidently to keep the material round the eggs from becoming too 
dry, but in wet weather they scrape it off again. The time of incubation is about 
six weeks. The young, when hatched, make their own way out, and do not 
need any assistance from their parents, but are able to fly and take care of 
themselves, leading a more or less solitary existence. 
“ The male bird soon repairs any damage that may have been done to the 
mound, and a single pair of birds use one mound, but occasionally another hen 
wiU lay her eggs in it. The young when hatched are of a dark brown colour 
and difficult to detect in the scrub ; they grow quickly, and in nine months 
are barely distinguishable from the parents.”* 
“ The male bird is always in the neighbourhood of the mound, and generally 
busy scraping it over to the depth of a foot or more, to keep the leaves, etc., 
loose and friable, so that the young can easily work their way out. Shortly 
before the eggs are laid he daily makes a hole in some part of the mound, and then 
rests his head and wattles against the bottom as if to feel the temperature, which 
in the mounds we tested was 96 degrees. 
“ Mr. H. R. Elvery, of Alston ville, Richmond River district, removed from 
a mound eggs of the Brush Turkey that were nearly incubated, and placed 
them in an ordinary incubator. When the young was ready to be hatched 
it did not chip the shell, after the manner of domestic poultry, but, with a shake 
or a struggle the shell, which is exceedingly brittle at this stage, burst or exploded 
into small pieces. When the young emerged, each feather was encased in a kind 
of conical-shaped gelatinous cap, which fell off as soon as it was dry, and the 
feather expanded. When liberated in the yard, the young bird ran strongly, 
carrying its head downwards, like a Quail threading grass. 
During the breeding season, when the wattles of the male bird are fully 
developed, he has the power of inflating them, making a bulging aU round the 
neck, when emptied again the wattles fall on one or other side of the neck. 
As winter approaches these wattles slowly decrease, till there is not much 
difference between the necks of the male and female. 
The bird figured and described is a male collected near Cairns in October, 
1899. The attitude is copied from a living bird in the Zoological Society’s 
Gardens, London. 
* Le Souef, Ihis, p. 14 (1899). 
f Id., Wild Life in Australia, p. 306. 
I Campbell, Nests and Eggs Austr. B., p. 713. 
60 
