Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-01-06
A GIGANTIC NEST.
A Great Cone Which the Australian Hens
Build For the Purpose of Matching.

A Great Cone Which the Australian Hens
Build For the Purpose of Matching.
The malice hen of Australia LAYS
its eggs in huge nest. The nest is
really an artificial mound of gigan.
tic proportions for the size of its
maker and the purpose it is to serve.
This artificial mound is co-opera-
ton incubator 1t is built by many
pairs of birds, male and female
working alike to construct it. These
same pairs or focks of birds annual
ly repair and enlarge the queer
looking cone which rises up like
turret dome from the level prairie.
Sometimes these tunnels attain
height of fully Is feet in the perpen-
dicular, with radius of equal
measurement Many of these nests
have measured as much as SO yards,
or $50 feet, around their base. That
would give the largest one measured
diameter of about SO feet. These
mound nests are entered through
sort of funnel cavity at the top of
the cone.
The hons of all the building and
repairing pairs lay in this immense
nest. The eggs are deposited about
6 feet below the surface. While each
hen lays her egg in the family
mound, no hen drops her egg closer
than 90 inches to that of her
neighbor. This egg is deposited in
cavity made for it, wherein it is
placed in vertical position, careful
ly 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 eggs by the same hen.
The eggs of the malice hen are
out of all proportion to her size.
They are as large as those of a goose
and of large hens are very much
larger.
The eggs thus laid and covered in
this great sand oven in the hot dis
tricts are never again disturbed by
the hens. The egg are Matched by
the heat the sun baAes into the soil
where they lay. 1t has never been
known how the young chicks are
excavated from their egg grave pr
the eggs are deposited full ix
inches below the surface, anu he
hardening rains do not aid their exit
very much.
The hen is so very shy and vigi-
liant that no one is able to study her
maternal and domestic habits with
satisfaction. AS she lays her egg at
night and transacts most Of her
affairs in the night watch so that no
naturalist OF curious individual CT
ferret her out, possibly she steals
her expected brood under cover
night also and gives them the p, /
rental unearthing which they must
surely need after the piping of the
eggshell.
Bush naturalists have been curious
to know how this peculiar fowl
builds that nest. The birds have
been working at it, and the mounds
have been inspected, but the piling
of the dirt is not from the immedi-
ate vicinity, for that is undisturbed.
Small springs and the like enter into
the plastic masonry, which stands
storms and heavy rains, when they
do fall, without serious injury.
These huge cones stand for years,
to be annually nested in by thesame
flock which originally constructed
the family incubator. When detect
ed, the hens emit pitiful little
caokle and futter away like
wounded innocent. The young of
covey either root under the sand or
hide behind some mound or object
of friendly color. = Cleveland
Leader