It was issued in octavo format (224 x 140 mm), containing 148 pages, bound in dark red cloth with a dust jacket illustrated by a photograph of a malleefowl.

It is the first book for public appraisal of a life history obtained by extensive and methodic research in field and laboratory.

Its subject – an extraordinary bird species now moving towards rarity through man's indifference – requires such a public book in support of a major and urgent conservation task revealed.

Frith's research was centred on the incubating mound in methodic enquiry of cycle and control; and from that real dominance the enquiry circled out to obtain and collate the remaining substance of life history into relativity, including conservation problems in predation, grazing and clearing for farming.

It also includes adequate comparison with the other Megapode species, notably the Brush-Turkey and Jungle-Fowl; it speculates briefly on the origin and development of mound incubation in an arid climate; and concludes with a succinct chapter of emphatic appeal for conservation of the Mallee-Fowl.