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Show 250 ON THE ZOOLOGY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. [May 1, to lay their eggs ; so they asked the Shark to take the Megapodes away. This was done ; but now the natives missed the Megapodes' eggs, so they asked the Shark to bring the Megapodes back but to confine them to one spot. This request was also complied with, and the result may now be seen. The Megapodes lay their eggs on two large cleared sandy spaces, and nowhere else on the island. Upon these no weeds or grass can grow, as the sand is constantly being turned over by the birds when digging holes to lay their eggs, and by the natives when in search of them. The sandy spaces are fenced off into plots which belong to different owners. I met with one of these Megapodes' laying-yards at Aola, on Guadalcanar, and was fortunate enough to be able to photograph it. The first photograph gives a general view of the yard, which was nearly half a mile in length and about fifty yards wide, with the fences dividing it off for different owners. The second photograph shows; a closer view of a portion of the yard, with the holes scraped in the sand by the birds. All over the yard may be noticed the tracks of the tails of the large Monitors, as though a stick had been drawn along the sand. I expect they take a pretty severe toll of the eggs. The eggs, which are buried from a foot to two feet in the warm sand, receive no further care from the birds, but the young shift for themselves from the time of hatching, and can fly at once, or very soon after leaving the egg. The natives are quite indifferent as to the condition of the eggs when they eat them-whether they are newly laid or well advanced towards hatching being all the same to them. From experience I can say that they are excellent food. The laying-yards are always made where the soil is loose and sandy, the birds require no other inducement. An open space being of course essential to allow the rays of the sun to warm the ground, it would evidently be quite useless for the birds to lay in the thick forest, or under the shade of trees. It is easy to imagine that before the natives constructed and cleared these laying-yards for the birds, they would be likely to lay in the yam-patches and garden clearings, and where they were plentiful would prove a serious inconvenience, as alleged in the Savo legend. The birds do not build a mound, but, as will be seen from the second photograph, make a hole from a foot to two feet deep. The sand afterwards falls in and covers the egg. The ground is consequently full of depressions, reminding one forcibly of the pitfalls of the ant-lion on a large scale. Among the Butterflies this group of islands appears to be the limit of range of the genus Ornithoptera, which, curiously enough, as in the case of Cockatoos and Hornbills, does not extend to San Christoval. Two species occur-the somewhat wide-ranging O. du-villiana and the remarkable and local O. victorice. This latter is, so far as I know, confined to the islands of Guadalcanar, Florida, and part of Malayta. |
