The genus _Megapodius_ contains some fifteen species, about the size of a small fowl, in which the coloration varies from olive or chestnut-brown to blackish or grey above, and from red-brown to pale or dark-grey below, the bill being reddish, greenish, or yellowish, and the feet black, red, orange, yellow, or horn-coloured. _M. pritchardi_, of Ninafou, alone has white bases to the primaries, and _M. wallacii_, of the Moluccas, exhibits bright chestnut bands on the upper surface. _M. duperreyi_ (_tumulus_), which ranges from the Kangeang Islands and Lombok to New Guinea and North-East Australia, fashions mounds, occasionally ten feet high, in dense scrub, laying pale coffee-coloured eggs in long burrows bored laterally, and not in symmetrical circles, as does _Catheturus_. _M. layardi_, of the New Hebrides, frequents damp wooded ravines, and is said to deposit its red-brown eggs among leaves in hollows. _M. cumingi_, found from the islands north of Borneo and Paláwan to the Philippines and Celebes, builds mounds of sand, leaves, and so forth, near the sea, the chalky eggs having a salmon hue. _M. eremita_, extending from the Solomon Islands almost to New Guinea, buries its eggs a couple of feet deep in open sandy spots, kept clear and fenced into allotments by the natives in Savo and Guadalcanar; while _M. nicobariensis_, of the Nicobars, appears to flock more than other Megapodes, and to lay its eggs at long intervals. _M. tenimberensis_, of the Tenimber Islands, _M. sanghirensis_ of the Sanghir group, _M. bernsteini_ of the Sula Islands, _M. forsteni_ and _M. freycineti_, ranging from the Moluccas to Western or even Northern New Guinea, _M. macgillivrayi_ of the Louisiade and D'Entrecasteaux Archipelagos and Eastern New Guinea, _M. geelvinkianus_, of the west of the latter with its islands, and _M. laperousii_, of the Pelew and Ladrone groups, are like their congeners in habits and appearance. _Chosornis praeteritus_ is an extinct form from Queensland.