Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/949

Rh from decaying vegetable substances, preserved sufficient warmth to hatch the eggs. The size of some of these mounds is quite marvelous. One which was measured proved to be fifteen feet high and sixty feet in circumference. The whole of this enormous mass was made by the jungle fowl. If the hand be inserted into the interior of the heap it will always be found quite hot. In almost every case the mound is placed under the shelter of densely leaved trees. This precaution is probably taken to prevent the rays of the sun from evaporating the moisture. The bird seems to deposit its eggs by digging holes from the top of the mound, laying the egg at the bottom, and then making its way out again, throwing back the earth it had scooped away. The holes are not dug perpendicularly, so that although they are six or seven feet in length they may be only two or three feet from the surface. The leipoa, or native pheasant of Australia, like the preceding, lays its eggs in a mound of earth and leaves, but the mound is not nearly so large. Another bird having this curious nesting habit is the brush turkey of New South Wales. In the Guide to the Gardens of the Zoölogical Society of London an interesting account of the construction of the mound by some captive birds is to be found. "On being removed into an inclosure with an abundance of vegetable material within reach, the male begins to throw it up into a heap behind him by a scratching kind of motion of his powerful feet, which projects each footful as he grasps it for a considerable distance in the rear. As he always begins to work at the outer margin of the inclosure, the material is thrown inward in concentric circles until sufficiently near the spot selected for the mound to be jerked upon it. As soon as the mound is risen to a height of about four feet, both birds work in reducing it to an even surface, and then begin to excavate a depression in the center. In this in due time the eggs are deposited as they are laid and arranged in a circle about fifteen inches below the summit of the mound at regular intervals with the smaller end of the egg pointing downward. The male bird watches the temperature of the mound very carefully; the eggs are generally covered, a cylindrical opening being always maintained in the center of the circle for the purpose of giving air to them, and probably to prevent the danger of a sudden increase of heat from the action of the sun or accelerated fermentation in the mound itself. In hot days the eggs are nearly uncovered two or three times between morning and evening. On the young bird chipping out of the egg it remains in the mound for at least twelve hours without making any effort to emerge from it, being at that time almost as deeply covered up by the male as the rest of the eggs. On the second day it comes out. Early in the afternoon it retires to the mound again and is partially covered up for the night by the assiduous father. On the third day the nestling is capable of strong flight."

Indiana Academy of Science.—The eleventh annual meeting of the Indiana Academy of Science was held in the State House at Indianapolis December 27th and 28th. The meeting was one of the best ever held. Over forty new members were elected. The address by the retiring president, Mr. A. W. Butler, on Indiana: A Century of Changes in the Aspects of Nature, was intensely interesting and very profitable. A poem by Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer, the "Kankakee poet," on The Naturalist, was a novel yet a pleasing feature. Many of the papers were worthy of special mention if space permitted. The Recent Earthquakes East of the Rocky Mountains, by A. H. Purdue, and Unconscious Mental Cerebration, by C. E. Newlin, were perhaps two of the most interesting. The report of the Biological Survey on Turkey Lake deservedly attracted much attention. The spring meeting will probably be held in joint session with the Ohio Academy near the State line. Officers for next year are as follows: President, Stanley Coulter, Purdue University; Vice-President, Thomas Gray-Rose, Polytechnic; Secretary, John S. Wright, Indianapolis; Assistant Secretary, A. J. Bigney, Moore's Hill College; Treasurer, W. P. Shannon, Greensburg.

Dirt-Eating.—The habit of dirt-eating among children is the subject of an interesting paper by Dr. John Thomson. He finds that it occurs in two classes of