Mr. J. Gould on a new species of Cassowary. 299 



external coat (sometimes covered externally with particles of sand 

 and Foraminifera, imbedded in its surface), which is only par- 

 tially attached to the general substance of the tube by thin lines, 

 concentric with the lines of growth, leaving the rest of the coat 

 separated from the surface of the tube by a distinct hollow space. 



In some specimens, as those in the British Museum from Mozam- 

 bique, the attached part of the outer coat is in nearly concentric 

 ring-like transverse lines round the tube, leaving a more or less 

 complete hollow ring between each attached portion. In others, as 

 that from the Philippines in the same collection, the attached portion 

 of the outer coat is oblique and interlaced so as to leave only narrow, 

 elongated, oblong, hollow tessellated interspaces on the surface, which 

 are acute at each end. 



I am not certain that these characters are permanent ; but if so, 

 one may be called Chcena annulosay and the other Chcena tessellata. 

 In the latter the outer coat is simple and smooth externally. In 

 the specimen from the PhiUppines the tube is covered with a close 

 coat of sand and a few Foraminifera, which are deeply imbedded in 

 the substance of the thin outer coat, giving it a very peculiar ap- 

 pearance. 



The shell of the newly hatched animal, which remains as a nu- 

 cleus on the coat of the older shells, is smooth, uniformly convex, 

 without any appearance of the anterior truncation or of the radiating 

 ridges, which is so peculiar in the adult shells ; and it seems also to 

 have a straight lower edge without any appearance of the large ven- 

 tral gape of the genus. 



The cavity of the tube is contracted by an internal ring just above 

 the hinder end of the shells, leaving an oblong central aperture of 

 about half the diameter of the tube. This contraction is formed of 

 several shelly plates with interspaces between them. 



The animal has the power of repairing a fracture of the tube. 

 There is a specimen in the Museum which had evidently been com- 

 pletely broken across about half its length, and the direction of the 

 tube altered ; the two portions have been united by an internal irre- 

 gular white shelly coat. 



December 8, 1857.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



On a New Species of Cassowary. 

 By John Gould, F.R.S., V.P., etc. 



I think it has been shown, that not only many species, but whole 

 genera, and even great families of birds, formerly existed on the sur- 

 face of the globe, of which no living representatives now remain, but 

 whose previous existence is made manifest to us by their foot-prints, 

 the remains of their osseous structure, or portions of their egg-shells ; 

 some of these lived in periods of the most remote antiquity, while 

 others are doubtless coeval with Man : of these latter probably not a 

 few owe their extirpation to his wanton disregard for their perpe- 

 tuity, such as the Dodo, the Dinornis, the Norfolk Island Parrot, 



