six or eight eggs or even more each season, so
that between the first and last there may be an interval of two or three
months. Now, if these eggs were hatched in the ordinary way, either the
parents must keep sitting continually for this long period, or if they
only began to sit after the last egg was deposited, the first would
be exposed to injury by the climate, or to destruction by the large
lizards, snakes, or other animals which abound in the district; because
such large birds must roam about a good deal in search of food. Here
then we seem to have a case in which the habits of a bird may be
directly traced to its exceptional organization; for it will hardly be
maintained that this abnormal structure and peculiar food were given
to the Megapodidae in order that they might not exhibit that parental
affection, or possess those domestic instincts so general in the Class
of birds, and which so much excite our admiration.

It has generally been the custom of writers on Natural History to take
the habits and instincts of animals as fixed points, and to consider
their structure and organization, as specially adapted, to be in
accordance with these. This assumption is however an arbitrary one, and
has the bad effect of stifling inquiry into the nature and causes
of "instincts and habits," treating them as directly due to a "first
cause," and therefore, incomprehensible to us. I believe that a careful
consideration of the structure of a species, and of the peculiar
physical and organic conditions by which it is surrounded, or has been
surrounded in past ages, will often, as in this case, throw much light
on the origin of its habits and instincts. These again, combined with
changes in external conditions, react upon structure, and by means of
"variation" and "natural selection", both are kept in harmony.

My friends remained three days, and got plenty of wild pigs and two
Anoas, but the latter were much injured by the dogs, and I could only
preserve the heads. A grand hunt which we attempted on the third day
failed, owing to bad management in driving in the game, and we waited
for five hours perched on platforms in trees without getting a shot,
although we had been assured that pigs, Babirusas, and Anoas would rush
past us in dozens. I myself, with two men, stayed three days longer to
get more specimens of the Maleos, and succeeded in preserving twenty-six
very fine ones--the flesh and eggs of which supplied us with abun