Zoological Society, 469 



labour that he was enabled to immortalize his name. At no period, 

 perhaps, has the recognition of this truth been more necessary than 

 at present, when a superficial acquaintance with a host of sciences is 

 looked upon as knowledge, — when a lively booby or pompous humbug 

 has far more chance of making himself a profitable name, however 

 short-lived, than the most earnest labourer in one department of 

 science, and the younger members of the community are thus likely 

 to be led away to swell the ranks of those who must be regarded as 

 mere cumberers of the ground. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



April 27, 1858.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



Note on the Egg of " The Mooruk " (Casuarius Ben- 

 nettii, Gould), from New Britain, in the British Mu- 

 seum. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., etc. 



The British Museum having obtained from Mr. Samuel Stevens 

 the egg of the Mooruk from New Britain (sent to him by Mr. 

 Turner, which he wished to exhibit to the Society before he deli- 

 vered it into the Collection), I am induced to send the following ob- 

 servations on it. 



The egg is of the same form and has the same solid shell, covered 

 with rounded tubercles, as that of the Common Cassowary, Casua- 

 rius galeatus. 



It differs from the egg of the latter bird in the British Museum 

 in being rather larger (it is 14J inches in circumference in the 

 longest, and 1 \\ inches in the thickest part), and in the tubercles on 

 the surface being larger, considerably further apart, and more iso- 

 lated, that is to say, more rarely confluent together. 



The egg is pale olive-green with darker olive tubercles ; it is much 

 darker than accords with my recollections of the eggs of the Casso- 

 waries in other collections ; but these may have been faded, as is 

 the case with our specimens in the British Museum. 



Mr. Bennett sent with the living specimen of the Mooruk now 

 exhibited in the Menagerie, which he so liberally presented to the 

 Society, an egg which was brought from New Britain with the 

 bird. This egg has been presented by him, through the Society, to 

 the British Museum. 



This egg differs very considerably from that exhibited by Mr. 

 Stevens: first, in being smaller, that is to say, only 13^ inches in 

 circumference in the longest and 11 inches in the thickest part; 

 secondly, in being blunter, more rounded in front, and not so conical 

 as the other ; thirdly, in being of a uniform pale olive-colour, without 

 any appearance of tubercles or darker spots. 



It has been suggested that the difference between the two eggs is 

 so great that they cannot have been laid by the same species of bird. 



Ann. % Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. ii. 32 



