MEGAPODES, a general name for the brush-turkeys or mound-birds of Australia con stituting the gallinaceous family Megapodiidte, so named in reference to the disproportionately large size of the feet; and remarkable for their breeding habits. The family, although mainly Australian, is represented in many of the South Sea Islands and in the Philippines, replacing the pheasants, which are absent from that re gion. There are 7 genera and 20 or more spe cies, mostly with restricted individual ranges, and varying in size from that of a turkey to that of a large pigeon, the sexes being always alike in plumage. general colors are browns and yellbws with the naked wattled parts brightly colored. They have a short, strong bill; the head and neck ahnost naked and wattled; the wings short and round, the tail large; the legs and feet large, strong and provided with great claws. Megapodes are ter restrial birds found in hill-valleys, among thick ets or along river and sea beaches. They run well, but if hard pressed will take to trees where they hop about awkwardly; their flight is heavy, but may be long sustained. Hoarse, chuckling, cackling or mewing cries express the utterances of the different species, which are often heard at night. The food consists of fallen fruit, seeds, berries, worms, snails, in sects and even small crabs. The flesh is dark colored and not good, though palatable to the Australian aborigines.
One of the best known species is the brush turkey or mound-turkey (Catketurus lathanti), also known as the wattled talegalla and the New Holland vulture, the latter name being given to it on account of its yellow, naked head and neck, covered in part with fleshy wattles. It is rather common in New South Wales, inhabit ing the most thickly wooded parts. It is a large bird, about the size of a turkey, with blackish brown plumage. It is shy, and when pursued, endeavors to escape by running through the thickest brush, or by leaping to the lowest branches of a tree, and thus avoids the dingoes or native dogs, which, however, often hunt it down on open ground. It is easy game to the sportsman, who finds it roosting under shelter of the branches of trees during the heat of the day, and although several of a flock are shot, the rest keep their place undisturbed. They are generally seen in small flocks, and make their nests together, the females heaping up, by means of their feet, mounds of several cart loads of earth and decayed leaves, which are used from year to year, new materials being added every year. The eggs are separately
buried, often by several females, within the mass, where they are hatched by the heat of the fermenting mound. The parent birds par tially uncover them during the day. Nearly a bushel of eggs may sometimes be found in a single heap. The male bird pays great atten tion to the young after they are hatched, cover ing them up partially in the mound at night for warmth. The flesh of the talegalla is excel lent, and the eggs are also very delicate and eagerly sought after. Two other species occur in New Guinea.
South and West Australia have another familiar megapode in tbe mallee-hen or °native (Lipoa occellata)— a large gray brown bird with eye-like markings on the wings and back, and the naked neck and wattles blue; its mounds are comparatively small and often made individually. A bird often confounded with this in hooks because of similarity of name is the maleo (Mcgacepalon maleo) of North Celebes, which has the singular habit of mak ing a general migration in the breeding season to the sea-beach, where small groups of females dig large holes in the sand just above high water mark, and day by day bury eggs there until the quota of each is laid; these gradually hatch under the influence of the hot sand. The largest genus is Megapodius, whose 15 species are scattered over all the island region between Samoa, the Philippines and the Micobars, each group having a distinct species. The most widely distributed and best known is M. tumu lus, the common mound-bird or scrub-turkey of Northern Australia and the Papuan archi pelago, which fashions mounds 10 or 11 feet high in the densest woods, continues to use them year after year, and lays pale, coffee-col ored, thin-shelled eggs in straight burrows penetrating the mound. In some islands the eggs of these birds are an important food re source. The young are well fledged when they emerge from the egg and scramble out of the mound, but are attended to by their parents for some time. Consult Newton, 'Dictionary of Birds' (1869); Zoological Soci ety of London, 1876, 1888, etc., and works on the ornithology of Australia and Oceanica.