704 Mr. Edwin Ashby on the [ Ibis, every loose twig and leaf seemed to have been gathered together and formed into a mound of fermenting material equal to several dray-loads. I have watched the male bird doing this work, taking several, shall I say, handfuls of debris and throwing it backwards until by successive efforts it has reached the spot chosen for the mound, In the moist warm conditions of that forest, fermentation quickly commenees and accumulated material rapidly generates heat.

We went through the mound in question and found that it was too fresh for the deposition of eggs; the temperature must have been very high—indeed, so hot that the eggs, if placed in it, would have been almost, if not quite, cooked. One cannot help asking how and by what means do the birds know when the temperature is right for their purpose.

The Serub-Turkey evidently has some knowledge of the conditions that are necessary for satisfactory incubation, and refrains from placing its eggs in the nesting-mound until this is reached. This suggests a rather high order of intelligence.

Leipoa ocellata Gould. The Mallee-Fowl. This fine bird inhabits almost exclusively the vast tracts of the drier parts of Australia which are covered with the various species of the dwarf branching forms of Eucalypti known as Mallee.

All opportunities that I have personally had of examining the nesting-mounds of this bird have been in the extensive belt of Mallee lying on both sides of the valley of the River Murray in South Australia.

The birds usually select a sandy rise and commence the nesting-mound by excavating a hole—in the case of the one I examined in this stage, situated about fifteen miles from the town of Mannum, the excavation was about eighteen inches deep and six feet or more across. For some reason the birds had forsaken this spot at this stage and made the nesting-mound on another sandy rise some distance away.

In reference to the digging of the hole for the foundation