Definition of "megapode" []

• Any of various large-footed, ground-dwelling birds of the family Megapodiidae, found in Australia and many South Pacific islands, that build mounds or burrows of earth and compost in which to incubate their eggs. Also called moundbird, mound builder, scrub fowl. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I come gladly to the conclusion that the megapode is a sagacious bird, not only in the avoidance of the dismal duty of incubation, but in respect of the making of those great mounds of decaying vegetable matter and earth which perform the function so effectively."
• "The bird we came across was called a megapode, and it has a very similar outlook on life."
• "He ate out of a sense of necessity and duty, and cared little for what he ate, save for one thing: the eggs of the megapodes that were, in season, laid in his private, personal, strictly tabooed megapode laying-yard."