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 this bird chooses 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 the
level of the sea, in a north-north-east direction from Drummond’s house in the Toodyay ; their sides are thickly
clothed with a dense forest of Eucalypti; and at their base is a thicket, extending for several miles, of upright-
growing and thick, bushy plants, so high in most parts that we could not see over their tops, and so dense, that
if we separated only for a few yards, we were obliged to cooey, to prevent our straying from each o th er;
this thicket is again shadowed by a very curious species of dwarf Eucalyptus bearing yellow blossoms and growing
from fifteen to thirty feet in height, known to the natives as the spear-wood, and of which they make their spears,
digging sticks, dowaks, &c.; the whole formation is a fine reddish ironstone gravel, and this the Leipoa scratches
up from several yards around, and thus forms its mound, to be afterwards converted into a hot-bed for the
reproduction of its offspring. The interior of the mounds is composed of the finer .particles of the gravel mixed
with vegetable matter, the fermentation of which produces a warmth sufficient for the purpose of hatching. Mr.
Drummond, who had been for years accustomed to hot-beds in England, gave it as his opinion that the heat
around the eggs was about 80°. In both the nests with eggs the White Ant was very numerous, making its little
covered galleries o f earth around and attached to the shell, thus showing a beautiful provision of Nature in
preparing the necessary tender food for the young bird when emerging from the shell; one of the eggs I have
preserved shows the White Ant’s tracks most beautifully; the largest mound I saw, and which appeared as if in a
state of preparation for eggs, measured forty-five feet in circumference, and if rounded in proportion. on the top
would have been full five feet in height. I remarked in all the nests not ready for the reception of eggs the inside
or vegetable portion was always wet and cold, and I imagine, from the state of others, that the bird turns out the
whole of the materials to dry before depositing its eggs and covering them up with the soil; in both cases where I
found eggs the upper p art of the mound was perfectly and smoothly rounded over, so that any one passing it
without knowing the singular habit of the bird might very readily suppose it to be an ant-hill: mounds in this
state always contain eggs within, while those without eggs are not only not rounded over, but have the centres so
scooped out that they form a hollow. The eggs are deposited in a very different manner from those of the
Megapodius; instead of each being placed in a separate excavation in different parts of the mound, they are laid
directly in the centre, all a t the same depth, separated only by about three inches of earth, and so placed as to
form a circle. I regret we were so early; had we been a week later, the probability is I should have found the circle
of eggs complete. Is it not singular that all the eggs were equally fresh, as if their development was arrested
until the full number was deposited, so that the young might all appear about the same time ? No one considering
the immense size of the egg can for a moment suppose the bird capable of laying more than one without a t least
the intermission of a day, and perhaps even more. The average weight of the egg is eight ounces, and fpur of
them on being blown yielded nearly a pint and a half. Like those of the Megapodius, they are covered with an
epidermis-like coating, and are certainly as large, being three inches and three quarters in length, by two and a
half in breadth ; they vary in colour from a very light brown to a light salmon. During the whole day we did not
succeed in obtaining sight of the bird, although we saw numerous tracks of its feet, and many places where it had
been scratching; we also saw its tracks on the sand when crossing the dried beds of the swamps at least two miles
from the breeding thicket, which proves that the bird, in procuring its food, does not confine itself to the brushes
around its nest, b ut merely resorts to them for the purpose of incubating. The native informed us that the only
chance of procuring the bird was by stationing ourselves in sight of the mound at a little distance, and remaining
quiet and immoveable till it made its appearance at sun-down; this I attempted, and, with the native, encamped
within twenty yards of the mound about an hour before sunset, taking the precaution to conceal ourselves well
with bushes from the quick eye of the bird, but leaving just a sufficient opening to get a fair sight with my gun;
in a half-sitting, half-crouching position I thus remained in breathless anxiety for the approach of the bird I had so
long wished to see, not daring to move a muscle, for fear of moving a branch or making a noise by crushing a dead
leaf, till I was so cramped I could scarcely bear the pain in my limbs; the bird did not however make its
appearance,- and the native, with the fear of wading through the thicket in darkness (for there was no moon),
became so impatient, that he started up and began to talk so loud and make so much noise, that I was compelled to
give up all hopes of seeing the bird that n ight; however, just as we were passing the mound we started the bird
from the opposite side, but from the denseness of the thicket and the darkness closing around us, I had no chance
of getting a shot at it. Mr. Roe, the Surveyor-general,.who examined several mounds during his expedition to the
interior in the year 1836, found the eggs nearly ready to hatch in the month of November, and invariably seven or
eight in number; while another authority has informed me of an instance of fourteen being taken from one
mound.”
In a subsequent letter Mr. Gilbert states that the flavour of the egg is very similar to that of the Tortoise or
Turtle, and th at when mixed with tea its similarity to the peculiar roughness and earthy flavour of that of the
Hawk’s-bill Turtle is very remarkable.
Genus M e g a p o d iu s , Quny fy Gaim.
The members of this genus inhabit all the Indian and Philippine Islands and Australia. Mr. G. R. Gray
informs me that “ the females of some species associate together in bands during the night and deposit their eggs
in a cavity which they dig to the depth of two or three feet ; that the successive deposits of eggs amount to a
hundred oh more and are left to be hatched by the solar rays ; that some cover them with sand and others with
the remains of plants ; and that the eggs are extremely large for the size of the birds, and are generally of
a cinnamon colour.”
442. Megapodius tumulus, Gould . . . . . . . . . . . . Vol. y . pi. 79
The following interesting account of the breeding-places of this remarkable bird has been transmitted to me by
Mr. John M'Gillivray as the result of his observations on Nogo or ,Megapodius Island in Endeavour Straits. I t
will be seen that its range is more extensive than I had assigned to i t :—
“ The most southern locality known to me for this singular bird is Haggerston Island (in lat. 12° 3' south),
where I observed several of its mounds of very large size, but did not see any of the birds. During the survey of
Endeavour Straits in H.M.S. Bramble, I was more fortunate, having succeeded in procuring both male and female
on the island marked e Nogo’ upon the chart, where I resided for several days for that sole purpose. On this small
island, not more than half a mile in length, rising at one extremity into a low rounded hill densely covered with
jungle (or what in New South Wales would be called ‘ brush’) , three mounds, one of them apparently deserted
before completion, were found. The two others were examined by Mr. Jukes and myself. The most recent,
judging from the smoothness of its sides and the want of vegetable matter, was situated upon the crest of the hill,
and measured 8 feet in height (or 13£ from the base of the slope to the summit) and 77 feet in circumference. In
this mound, after several hours’ hard digging into a well-packed mass of earth, stones, decaying branches and
leaves and other vegetable matter, and the living roots of trees, we found numerous fragments of eggs, besides one
broken egg containing a dead and putrid chick, and another whole one, which proved to be addled. All were
imbedded at a depth of six feet from the nearest p art of the surface, at which place the heat produced by the
fermentation of the mass was considerable. The egg, 3 j by 2 i inches, was dirty brown, covered with a kind of
epidermis, which easily chipped off, exposing a pure white surface beneath. Another mound, situated at the foot
of the hill close to the beach, measured no less than 160 feet in circumference, and to form this immense
accumulation of materials the ground in the vicinity had been scraped quite bare by the birds, and numerous
shallow excavations pointed out whence the materials had been derived. Its form was an irregular oval, the
flattened summit not being central as in the first instance, but situated nearer the larger end, which was elevated
14 feet from the ground, the slope measuring in various directions 18, 2 l i, and 24 feet. At Port Lihou, in a small
bay a few miles to the westward, at Cape York and at Port Essington, I found other mounds which were
comparatively low, and appeared to have been dug into by the natives. The great size the tumuli (which are
probably the work of several generations) have attained on Haggerston and Nogo Islands arises doubtless from
those places being seldom visited by the Aborigines. I found several eggs of large size in the ovarium of a female
shot in August, while the condition of the oviduct showed that an egg had very recently passed; hence it is
probable that, in spite of their great comparative size, one bird lays several ; but whether each mound is resorted
to by more than one pair, I had not the means of ascertaining.