megapodean

Updated: May 25, 2025

Talk of precocious chicks! There are none anywhere to be compared with the megapodean pullets of the Malayan Archipelago, no birds half so "early" as they. For some days, after eating up the last chicken of the flock, our castaways could get nothing to live upon but durions; and although these formed a diet sufficiently agreeable to the palate, they were not very strengthening.

Mayne Reid - The Castaways