delicious. They are richer than hens' eggs and of a finer favour, and
each one completely fills an ordinary teacup, and forms with bread or
rice a very good meal. The colour of the shell is a pale brick red, or
very rarely pure white. They are elongate and very slightly smaller at
one end, from four to four and a half inches long by two and a quarter
or two and a half wide.
After the eggs are deposited in the sand, they are no further cared for
by the mother. The young birds, upon breaking the shell, work their way
up through the sand and run off at once to the forest; and I was assured
by Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, that they can fly the very day they are
hatched. He had taken some eggs on board his schooner which hatched
during the night, and in the morning the little birds flew readily
across the cabin. Considering the great distances the birds come to
deposit the eggs in a proper situation (often ten or fifteen miles) it
seems extraordinary that they should take no further care of them. It
is, however, quite certain that they neither do nor can watch them. The
eggs being deposited by a number of hens in succession in the same hole,
would render it impossible for each to distinguish its own; and the food
necessary for such large birds (consisting entirely of fallen fruits)
can only be obtained by roaming over an extensive district, so that
if the numbers of birds which come down to this single beach in the
breeding season, amounting to many hundreds, were obliged to remain in
the vicinity, many would perish of hunger.
In the structure of the feet of this bird, we may detect a cause for
its departing from the habits of its nearest allies, the Megapodii and
Talegalli, which heap up earth, leaves, stones, and sticks into a huge
mound, in which they bury their eggs. The feet of the Maleo are not
nearly so large or strong in proportion as in these birds, while its
claws are short and straight instead of being long and much curved. The
toes are, however, strongly webbed at the base, forming a broad powerful
foot, which, with the rather long leg, is well adapted to scratch away
the loose sand (which flies up in a perfect shower when the birds are at
work), but which could not without much labour accumulate the heaps of
miscellaneous rubbish, which the large grasping feet of the Megapodius
bring together with ease.
We may also, I think, see in the peculiar organization of the entire
family of the Megapodidae or Brush Turkeys, a reason why they depart so
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