88 
occasionally a pair appear together. The mother, who is feeding in 
the scrub in the vicinity, hears its call and runs to it. She then 
takes care of the young one as a European hen does of its chick. 
When the young are all hatched the mother is accompanied by 
eight or ten young ones, who remain with her until they are more 
than half-grown. The male bird does not accompany them. The 
two sexes have different calls : that of the female is constantly uttered 
«/ 
while she walks about in the scrub with her young ones. 
“ The natives frequently find the eggs and nests, but they seldom 
see the old birds, which are very timid and quick-sighted. They 
run very fast, like the Emu, roost on trees, and live for a long time 
without water, but drink when it rains. The natives state that the 
Entozoce which I found in the bird mentioned above w r ere unusual, 
and that it must have been in ill health. 
“ It is a remarkably stout, compact bird, and appears, when alive, 
to have as large a body as the female turkey, but it is shorter on 
the legs.” 
To this valuable account I may add the following, furnished by 
Mr. Gilbert : — 
“ Wongan Hills, Western Australia, September 28, 1842. 
“ This morning I had the good fortune to penetrate into the 
dense thicket I had been so long anxious to visit in search of the 
Leipoa’s eggs, and had not proceeded far before the native who was 
with me told me to keep a good lcok-out, as we were among the 
Ngou-oos hillocks, and in half an hour after we found one, around 
which the brush was so thick that we were almost running over be- 
fore seeing it ; so anxious was I to see the hidden treasures within 
that in my haste I threw aside the black fellow and began scraping 
off the upper part of the mound ; this did not at all please him and 
he became very indignant, at the same time making me understand 
‘that as I had never seen this nest before I had better trust to him 
to get out the eggs, or I should, in my haste and impatience, cer- 
tainly break them.’ I therefore let him have his own way, and he be- 
gan scraping off the earth very carefully from the centre, throwing 
it over the side, so that the mound very soon presented the appear- 
ance of a huge basin ; about two feet in depth of earth was in this 
way thrown off, when the large ends of two eggs met my anxious 
gaze ; both these eggs were resting on their smaller apex, and the 
earth around them had to be very carefully removed to avoid break- 
ing the shell, which is extremely fragile when first exposed to the 
atmosphere ; this mound was about three feet in height and seven 
to nine feet in circumference; the form, as left by the bird, was in 
outline the segment of a circle. About a hundred yards from this 
first nest we came upon a second, rather larger, of the same external 
form and appearance; it contained three eggs. Although we saw 
seven or eight more mounds, only these two contained eggs ; we were 
too early ; a week later and we should doubtless have found many 
more. To give you an idea of the place these birds choose for its 
remarkable mode of rearing its young, I will describe it as nearly as 
I can : — The Wongan Hills are about thirteen hundred feet above 
