The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1897-12-26
a G%iGANrlC Nnsr.
a Great Cone Witch n Australian
Hens Build.

Hens Build.
Cleveland Leader.
The malice hen of Australia lays It's eggs
In a huge nest. The nest Is really an arti-
fetal mound of gigantic proportions for
the size OF its maker and the purpose it
is to serve. This artificial mound Is d
cooperation incubator. 1t is built by
many pairs of birds, male ana female
working alike TO construct It. The same
pairs or flocks of birds annually repair
and enlarge the queer looking cone which
rises up like a turret dome from the level
prairie.
Sometimes these tunnels attain Al height
OF fully fifteen feet in the perpendicular,
with a radius Of equal measurement. Many
Of these nests have measured MS much as
nfty yards, or 1850 feet. around their base.
That would give the largest one measured
a diameter of about fifty feet. These mound
nests are entered through a sort OF funnel
cavity OF the top OF the cone.
The hons of all The building and repair
ing pairs lay IN this immense nest. The
eggs are deposited about six feet below
- wa s'AA 10, . .AAAA iAb
In the family mound. no hen drops her
egg closer than twenty inches, to that Of
her neighbor, These eggs are deposited
IN a cavity made for II. wherein il is
placed in a vertical position, carefully
smoothed over by the hen before she quits
the nest. Contrary TO the usual practice
Of the bird and fowl species, these malice
hens lay at night instead OF In the day.
Several days elapse also between the drop
ping of two ppgS hy thp Snmp hon
The eggs of tho malice hen are out OF
All proportion TO her size. They are AS
large as those of a goose, and of large
hens, arc very much larger.
The eggs thus laid and covered in this
great sand oven in tho hot districts ara
never again disturbed by the hens. The
eggs are Matched by the heat the sun hNkps
INTO the soil where they lay. 1t has never
been known how the young chicks arr
eXcayated from their egg grave. for the
eggs are deposited fully six inches below
the surface. and the hardening rains do
not aid their exit very much.
The hen is so very shy and yigilant that
no one Is able to study her maternal and
domestic habits with satisfaction. As sac
lays her eggs at night. and transacts most
of her affairs in the night watch SO that
no naturalist or curious Individual ear
ferret her out, possibly she steals
to her expected brood under cover OF niCht
also and gives them the parental unearth-
ing which they must surely need after the
piping OF the egg she'll.
Bush naturalists have been curious Ia
know how this peculiar fowl builds that
nest. The birds have been seen WORKING
at II, and the mounds have been inspected
but the piling of the dirt is not from III,
immediate vicinity, for that is undisturbed
SINAI springs and the like enter into The
plastic masonry, which staads storms and
feavy rains, when they do fall. without
serious injury.
These huge cones stand for years. 10 he
annually nested in ny the same .iock
which originally constructed the family
incubation. When detected, The hers emit
y pltttul little caoklc ana ilutter ava,
like q wounded innocent. The Young q,
a covey either root under the sand or hide
behind some mound or object of a friendly
color.