As the dawn hastens a subdued fugue of chirps and whistles, soft, continuous and quite distinct from the cheerful individual notes and calls with which the glare is greeted, completes a circle of sounds.  Wheresoever he stands the listener is in the centre of ripples of melody which blend with the silence almost as speedily as the half lights flee before the pompous rays of the imperial sun.  This charming melody is but a general exclamation of pleasure on the recovery of the day from the apprehension of the night, a mutual recognition, an interchange of matutinal compliments.  Those who take part in it may be jealous rivals in a few minutes, but the first impulse of each new day is a universal paean, not loud and vaunting, but mellow, sweet and unselfish.

THE MEGAPODE

The cackle and call of the scrub fowl (MEGAPODIUS DUPERREYS) are nocturnal as well as sounds of the day, being repeated at intervals all through the night.  Rarely venturing out of the shades of the jungle, the eyesight of this bird is, no doubt, specially adjusted to darkness and subdued lights, and is thus enabled to detect and prey upon insects which during the day lurk under leaves and decayed wood, or bury themselves in the surface of the ever moist soil.  Astonishment is excited that there can by any possibility be any grubs or beetles, centipedes and worms, scorpions and spiders left to perpetuate their species, when the floor of the jungle is raked over with such assiduity by this powerful and active bird.  During the day the megapode is sometimes silent, but ever and anon it gives way to what may in charity be presumed to be a crow—–­an uncouth, discordant effort to imitate the boastful, tuneful challenge of the civilised rooster.  In common with “Elia” (and others) the megapode has no ear for music.  It seems to have been practising “cock-a-doodle-doo” all its life in the solitary corners and undergrowth, and to have not yet arrived within quavers of it.  It “abhors the measured malice of music.”

The inclusion among the birds of the air of such an inveterate land lover, a bird which seldom takes flight of its own motive, is permissible on general principles, while its practical exercise of rare domestic economy entitles it to special and complimentary notice.  Reference is made elsewhere to the surpassing intelligence of the megapode in taking advantage of the heat caused by the fermentation of decaying vegetation to hatch out huge eggs.  Long before the astute Chinese practised the artificial incubation of hens’ and ducks’ eggs, these sage birds of ours had mastered it.  Several birds seem to co-operate in the building of a mound, which may contain many cartloads of material, but each bird appears to have a particular area in which to deposit her eggs.  The chicks apparently earn their own living immediately they emerge fully fledged from the mound, and are so far independent of maternal care that they are