[23]. In Hearne’s Travels in North America, (p. 383), it is stated that the Northern Indians shoot the varying hare, which will not bear to be approached in a straight line, in an analogous manner, by walking round it in a spire. The middle of the day is the best time, when the shadow of the hunter is not very long.
[24]. Sturt’s Travels, vol. ii. p. 74.
[25]. A Gaucho assured me that he had once seen a snow-white, or Albino variety, and that it was a most beautiful bird.
[26]. It appears, also, from Mr. Gould’s late most interesting discoveries regarding the habits of the Talegalla Lathami, (an Australian bird, one of the Rasores,) that several females lay in one nest, and that the eggs are hatched by the heat engendered by a mass of decaying vegetable matter. It appears that the males assist the females in scratching together the leaves and earth, of which the great conical mound or nest is composed.
[27]. Burchell’s Travels, vol. i. p. 280.
[28]. Azara, vol. iv. p. 173.
[29]. Lichtenstein, however, (Travels, vol. ii. p. 25.) states, that the hens begin to sit when ten or twelve eggs are laid, and that they afterwards continue laying. He affirms that by day the hens take turns in sitting, but that the cock sits all night.
[30]. The naturalists in Lutke’s voyage, vol. iii. p. 255, seem to consider a gull, which they obtained at Concepcion, as the Larus Franklinii of North America.
[31]. I am much indebted to Mr. Eyton for these observations, which greatly add to the value of the previous descriptions.
[32]. Since the above was in type, I have had, through the kindness of Mr. Gould, an opportunity of examining Menura lyra, and find my former supposition to be correct; but neither of these genera can be placed among the gallinaceous birds where the latter bird has been arranged by some authors.