1.
[syn: megapode, mound bird, mound-bird, mound builder, scrub fowl]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
moundbird \moundbird\, mound bird \mound bird\n. (Zool.)
Any of several large-footed short-winged birds of
Australasia, which build mounds of decaying vegetation to
incubate eggs. Called also mound builder, mound maker,
megapode, brush turkey, and scrub fowl.
Syn: megapode, mound builder, scrub fowl, brush turkey.
[WordNet 1.5]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Mound \Mound\, n. [OE. mound, mund, protection, AS. mund
protection, hand; akin to OHG. munt, Icel. mund hand, and
prob. to L. manus. See Manual.]
An artificial hill or elevation of earth; a raised bank; an
embarkment thrown up for defense; a bulwark; a rampart; also,
a natural elevation appearing as if thrown up artificially; a
regular and isolated hill, hillock, or knoll.
[1913 Webster]
To thrid the thickets or to leap the mounds. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
Mound bird. (Zool.) See moundbird in the vocabulary.
Mound builders (Ethnol.), the tribe, or tribes, of North
American aborigines who built, in former times, extensive
mounds of earth, esp. in the valleys of the Mississippi
and Ohio Rivers. Formerly they were supposed to have
preceded the Indians, but later investigations go to show
that they were, in general, identical with the tribes that
occupied the country when discovered by Europeans.
Mound maker (Zool.), any one of the megapodes. See also
moundbird in the vocabulary.
Shell mound, a mound of refuse shells, collected by
aborigines who subsisted largely on shellfish. See
Midden, and Kitchen middens.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
mound bird
n 1: large-footed short-winged birds of Australasia; build
mounds of decaying vegetation to incubate eggs [syn:
megapode, mound bird, mound-bird, mound builder,
scrub fowl]