The Domestic Life Of A Megapode

There are 13 species of megapodes—birds that build mounds in vhich their eggs are hatched. Two of them are the brush-turkeys of Sew Guinea and others are found as far east as the Samoan Islands. Most }f them live in tropical jungle and getting built-in heat in the mound nesents no problem.

HE megapode that really has a central-heating and air-condition problem is the one which H. I. th writes about in a book which he Is The Mallee-Fowl. (The mallee- M is sometimes known as the native sasant, the lowan or gnow, and its mtific name is Leipoa ocellata; it nds about 18 inches high and is yish, with brown-banded wings I tail). fhe Mallee, with a capital M, in stralian terminology, usually refers that part of north-western Vic ia, now given over largely to eat-growing, which was covered urally with low-growing scrub and is.

Hie word, without the capital, is aboriginal one and refers to a cial eucalypt, the gnarled roots which (something like the olive its of the Mediterranean), have in used to feed generations of Vic ian fireplaces as winter fuel.

Sallee-scrub country has now in extended to mean not only the itorian Mallee, but to include lilar sort of dry terrain with a five 15 inch annual rainfall, through md parts of New South Wales, ith Australia and Western Aus lia. It is this scrub country that the mallee-fowl’s natural habitat 1 its environment turns it from [ easy-going ways of the jungle gapode into what is probably the ■dest-working bird in the world, fhe male mallee-fowl has a soli y, unremitting life of toil, and the aale only less so, culminating in three or four months’ period of (-laying. The mound-building Ihod of incubation may seem art and time-saving, and in the igle it may well be so. In mallee mtry, with its great extremes of timer heat and winter frost, it is ©ntinual battle against temperature itrol. This the bird manages with Host human skill, although it adds in the end to inefficiency in that Host the same proportion of eggs i lost or unhatched, as with the )oding birds. fexcept for a brief mid-winter vaca n, the mound is the almost con mt concern of the male fowl. It iy take up to four months to build and eggs may be in it in various iges of hatching for up to eight Miths, according to seasonal con

ditions. During this time the male continually guards it, works it, regu lates its temperature by opening it or piling more debris on top, and opens it every few days for the female to deposit yet more eggs in the cen tral egg chamber.

Heat for incubation is provided both by fermentation of organic matter and by the sun. During the late winter the bird gathers the sparse organic matter of his environment and, while it is wet, buries it deeply below the soil where it begins to fer ment and produce heat. He piles sand and debris on top, sometimes to a central height of four feet. By spring this mound is producing enough—and at times more than enough—heat for the first-laid eggs.

As the process of fermentation and heat-production begins to wane, the season has advanced into summer, and the bird automatically turns over to use of solar heat.

But more than this, he has to pro vide for the daily variations in tem perature, and also the build-up of heat in the early stages of fermen tation.

As the season advances still fur ther into autumn, when the fermen tation heat is spent, and solar heat declining, the bird removes layers of sand during the day so that the eggs get the more direct rays of the sun, heats this up separately by turning it in the sun, and spreads it over the

egg mound again for the night.

Throughout the year then, the mallee-fowl does “little else but build and manipulate the incubators,” ac cording to Frith, and this it does very effectively, apparently not know ing that normal birds lay all their eggs for one clutch, sit on them for a few weeks and then have done with the business.

This is a fascinating book, even for non-bird-watchers, written by an expert but in an easy and light hearted manner. Mr. Frith is Officer in-Charge of the Wildlife Survey Sec tion of the CSIRO and it was because it was believed that these birds were dying out with the encroachment of farming, that his survey was made. (THE MALLEE-FOWL. Published by Angus and Robertson Ltd. 35/-.)