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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MEC-MIC |
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MEGAPODE (Gr. t yas, great and robs, foot) , the name given generally to a small but remarkable family of birds, characteristic of some parts of the Australian region, to which it is almost peculiar. The Megapodiidae, with the Cracidae and Phasianidae, form that division of the sub-order Galli named by Huxley Peristeropodes (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, p. 296). Their most remarkable habit is that of leaving their eggs to be hatched without incubation, burying them in the ground (as many reptiles do), or in a mound of earth, leaves and rotten wood
bright yellow. The tail is commonly carried upright and partly folded, some-thing like that of a domestic fowl. Allied to it are three or four species of Talegallus, from New Guinea
Another form, an inhabitant of South and West Australia, commonly known in England as the mallee-bird, but to the colonists as the " native pheasant
1 Antonio Pigafetta, one of the survivors of Magellan's voyage, records in his ournal, under date of April 1521, among the peculiarities of the Philippine Islands, then first discovered by Europeans, the existence of a bird there, about the size of a fowl, which laid its eggs, as big as a duck's, in the sand, and left them to be hatched by the heat of the sun (Premier voyage autour du monde, ed. Amoretti, Paris, A.R. ix. 88). More than a hundred years later the Jesuit Nieremberg, in his Historic naturae, published at Antwerp in 1635, described (p. 207) a bird called " Daie," and by the natives named " Tapun," not larger than a dove, which, with its tail (!) and feet excavated a nest in sandy places and laid therein eggs bigger than those of a goose. The publication at Rome in 1651 of Hernandez's Hist. avium novae Hispaniae shows that his papers must have been accessible to Nieremberg, who took from them the passage just mentioned, but, as not unusual with him, misprinted the names which stand in Hernandez's work (p. 56, cap. 220) " Daic " and " Tapum " respectively, and omitted his predecessor's important addition Viuit in Philippicis." Not long after, the Dominican Navarrete, a missionary to China, made a considerable stay in the Philippines, and returning to Europe in 1673 wrote an account of the Chinese empire, of which Churchill (Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i.) gave an English translation in 1704. It is therein stated (p. 45) that in many of the islands of the Malay Archipelago " there is a very singular bird call
body
ordinary chicken, tho' long legg'd, yet it lays an egg larger than a gooses, so that the egg is bigger than the bird itself. In order to lay its eggs, it digs in the sand above a yard in depth; after laying, it fills up the hole and makes it even with the rest; there the eggs hatch with the heat of the sun and sand." Gemelli Careri, who travelled from 1663 to 1699, and in the latter year published an account of his voyage round the world, gives similar evidence respecting this bird, which he calls " tavon," in the Philippine Islands (Voy. du tour du monde, ed. Paris, 1727, v. 157, 158) The megapode of Luzon is fairly described by Camel or Camelli in his observations on the birds of the Philippines communicated by Petiver to the Royal Society in 1703 (Phil. Trans. xxiii. 1398). In 1726 Valentyn published his elaborate work on the East Indies, wherein (deel iii. bk. v. p. 320) he correctly describes the megapode of Amboina under the name of " malleloe," and also a larger kind found in Celebes.described until 1846,1 when it received from Salomon Muller (Arch. f. Naturgeschichte, xii. pt. 1, p. 116) the name of Macrocephalon maleo, but, being shortly afterwards figured by Gray and Mitchell
bright red colour; the plumage of the body
Of the megapodes proper, constituting the genus Megapodius, about fifteen species are admitted. 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
Megapodes are shy terrestrial birds, of heavy flight, and omnivorous diet. In some islands they are semi-domesticated, although the flesh is dark and generally unpalatable. (A. N.) End of Article: MEGAPODE (Gr. t yas, great and robs, foot) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/MEC_MIC/MEGAPODE_Gr_t_yas_great_and_ro.html"> MEGAPODE (Gr. t yas, great and robs, foot) </a> |
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