The next form of which we may speak is another inhabitant of Australia, commonly known in England as the Mallee-bird, but to the colonists as the “Native Pheasant”—the Lipoa ocellata, described by Gould in the zoological Proceedings for 1840 (p. 126), which has much shorter tarsi and toes, the head entirely clothed, and the tail expanded. Its plumage presents a pleasing combination of greys and browns of various tints, interspersed with black, white, and buff, the wing-coverts and feathers of the back bearing each near the tip an oval or subcircular patch, whence the trivial scientific name of the bird is given, while a stripe of black feathers with a median line of white extends down the front of the throat, from the chin to the breast. There is but one species of this genus known, as is also the case with the next to be mentioned, which is a singular bird long known to inhabit Celebes, but not fully described until 1846, when it received from Salomon Miiller (Arch. f. Naturgeschichte, xii. pt. 1, p. 116) the name of Macrocephal<yn maleo, but, being shortly afterwards figured by Gray and Mitchell (Gen. Birds, iii. pl. 123) under the generic term of Megacephalon, has since commonly borne the latter appellation. This is a very remarkable form, bearing a helmet-like protuberance on the back of its head, all of which as well as the neck is bare and of a bright red colour; the plumage of the body is glossy black above, and beneath roseate-white.

Of the Megapodes proper, constituting the genus Megapodius, many species have been described, but authorities are greatly at variance as to the validity of several, and here it would be impossible to name all that have been supposed to exist. Some are only known from very young examples—mere chickens; and some have even been described from their eggs alone. In 1870 Mr G. R. Gray enumerated twenty species, of which sixteen were represented in the British Museum, and several have been described since; but ten years later Professor Schlegel recognized only seventeen species, of which examples of twelve were contained in the Leyden Museum (Mus. des Pays-Bas, viii., Monogr. 41, pp. 56-86), while Μ. Oustalet, in his elaborate monograph of the Family (Ann. Sc. Nat., Zoologie, ser. 6, vols. x. and xi.), admits nineteen species. The birds of this genus range from the Samoa Islands in the east, through the Tonga group, to the New Hebrides, the northern part of Australia, New Guinea and its neighbouring islands, Celebes, the Pelew Islands, and the Ladrones, and have also outliers in detached portions of the Indian Region, as the Philippines (where indeed they were first discovered by Europeans), Labuan, and even the Nicobars—though none are known from the intervening islands of Borneo, Java, or Sumatra. Within what may be deemed their proper area they are found, says Mr Wallace (Geogr. Distr. Animals, ii. p. 341) “on the smallest islands and sand-banks, and can evidently pass over a few miles of sea with ease.” Indeed proof of their roaming disposition is afforded by the fact that the bird described by Lesson (Voy. Coquille: Zoologie, p. 703) as Alecthelia urvillii, but now considered to be the young of Megapodius freycineti, flew on board his ship when more than 2 miles from the nearest land (Guebé), in an exhausted state, it is true, but that may be attributed to its extreme youth. The species of Megapodius are about the size of small Fowls, the head generally crested, the tail very short, the feet enormously large, and, with the exception of Μ. wallacii (Proc. Zool. Society, 1860, Aves, pl. 171), from the Moluccas, all have a sombre plumage.

The extraordinary habit possessed by the Megapodes generally of relieving themselves of the duty of incubation, as before mentioned,—a habit which originally attracted the attention of travellers, whose stories were on that very account discredited,—as well as the highly developed condition of the young at birth, has been so fully described by Gould (Handb. B. Australia, ii. pp. 152- 175), G. R. Gray (Proc. Zool. Society, 1861, pp. 292-296), and Mr Wallace (Malay Archipelago, i. pp. 415-419; ii. pp. 147-149), and so often repeated by other writers, as to be very commonly known, and here there seems no necessity to enter into further details concerning it. (a. n.)