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Show 1876.] NORTH-EASTERN Q U E E N S L A N D . 117 during my visit. They are still plentiful in the New-South-Wales scrubs. I found that two or more females visited the same mound to lay their eggs in ; and when this is the case the mound is often twice as large as an ordinary mound. It seems probable that several individuals assist in scratching the mound together, when a space often 50 yards in diameter (on level ground) is found cleared of almost every fallen leaf and twig. The mounds are often 6 feet in height, and 12 to 14 wide at the base; sometimes they are more conical. The central portion consists of decayed leaves mixed with fine debris, the next of coarser and less rotted materials ; and the outside is a mass of recently gathered leaves, sticks, and twigs not showing signs of decay. In opening the nest these are easily removed, and must be carefully pushed backwards over the sides, beginning at the top. Having cleared these, and obtained plenty of room, remove the semidecayed strata; and below it, where the fermentation has begun, in a mass of light fine leaf-mould will be found the eggs placed with the thin end downwards, often in a circle, with three or four in the centre, about 6 inches apart. At one side, where the eggs have been first laid, they will probably be found more or less incubated; but in the centre, where the eggs are placed last, quite fresh ; and if only one pair of birds have laid in the mound, about twelve to eighteen eggs will be the complement, and will be found arranged as described above. On the other hand, if several females resort to the same nest, the regularity will be greatly interfered with, and two or three eggs in different stages of development will be found close to one another, some quite fresh, others within a few days of being hatched. There are usually ten eggs in the first layer, five or six in the second, three or four only in the centre. I found that the females return every second day to lay, but never succeeded in ascertaining which of the parent birds opens the nest. The aborigines informed me that the male bird always performs this office; and I usually found my black boys very correct in their statements of this kind. After robbing a nest it is necessary to replace the different layers as they are found; if the lowermost is too much mixed up with the others, or the top tumbled into the excavations made in the bottom one, the birds will invariably forsake the mound; so that I found it always necessary to carefully replace the different layers as I found them. It is not so with the Megapodius tumulus, which does not seem to care how much the mound is tumbled about, so that there is sufficient debris left to burrow in ; and, indeed, should there not be, they quietly set to work and scratch it together again. The mounds of the Tallegalius are seldom found on a great incline when a level spot can be obtained. They frequently bring the debris from a considerable distance; and in one instance on the Richmond river I noticed a place where about a cartload had been scratched through a shallow part of a creek 3 or 4 inches deep in water, and up the other side of the bank to the mound, which was over 40 yards distant. The de'bris is always thrown behind them. The greatest number of eggs taken from one mound at one time was thirty-six. This was a very old |