NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 107 1 



sloping, liomy helmet, and the long quills of tlic spiunous wings, play 

 an important paal. 



I had the opportunity of viewing a handsome pair of full-grown 

 Cassowaries, the property of Mr. B. Gulliver, at Acacia- Vale Nui-stries, 

 Townsville (Queensland). Tliey were beautiful creatm-es in their jet- 

 black, hair-like coats, shorter in build, and with nuich more powerful 

 legs than the Emu. The head and neck were destitute of feathers, but 

 covered willi a beautiful blue and pink skin, there being also two small 

 pinkish lobes of wattle hanging from the breast or neck. The birds 

 stood about four feet high, but when fully erect were a, foot higher. 

 Their horny helmets should have been about six inches in length, but 

 these head-pieces had been considerably battered down in various duels, 

 for both birds were males. To fight one another, they have been 

 observetl to clear at a single bound a dividing fence seven or eight feet 

 high. Tliey were fed almost entirely on the fruit of the papaw-tree 

 (Carica -papaya J, cut up into morsels about an inch or so square, which 

 iu-e taken between the points of the mandibles, and by a graceful uplift- 

 ing of the head jerked into the gullet. When a bird is scared or alarmed 

 it makes a most peciiliai", ventriloquial soiuid, repeated five or six times. 

 To produce this noise the bird is seemingly put to an immense effort. 

 It doubles its head downwards, placing its chin close to its neck, all the 

 back and rear feathers being erected, while, with .spasmodic jerks, it 

 pumps, so to speak, a sound resembling distant thunder. Mr. B. Gulliver 

 captui-ed these Cassowaries when young, in the Cairns district, in 

 October, 1883. 



The handsome pair of eggs whicli I described in 1886 was from the 

 collection of Dr. T. P. Lucas. The following year Mr. Joseph Barker, 

 in my interest, annexed from the natives (aborigines), just as tliey were 

 about to cook and eat them, two sfiecimens, fresh and beautifid. The 

 eggs, whicli were found in the Cardwell disti'iet, 3rd October, reached my 

 collection safely. Mr. Barker, who is a keen field obsei-ver, happened 

 to be at Oak Hills, in the same district, during one of Mr. K. Broadbent's 

 (the able collector attached to the Queensland Museum) visits. I imder- 

 stand, together, they found a Cassowan'.« nest in September, 1886, con- 

 taining three fresh eggs. The nesting place was merely a hollow on a 

 dn' stony ridge, in the centre of a dense scnib. 



Dr. Lumholtz, in his fascinating book " Among Cannibals, " refemng 

 to the Cassowary, under date 6th October (1882), says; — "Natives 

 brought me two eggs, and a young bird just hatched. Eggs, three in 

 niunber, are frequently laid at long intei-vals. In this instance there 

 was the bird just hatched, one egg almost hatched, and another egg the 

 contents of which could easily be blown. Tlius we see that the 

 young are not hatched all at one time, and that the female must there- 

 fore take care of them while the male bird is sitting." 



As in the Emu, so in the Ca,ssowary, upon the male devolves the task 

 of incubating the eggs. The laving season may be said to be from the 

 end of August or the beginning of September to October, and the period 

 of incubation probably seven weeks or over. 



I do not recollect ever seeing a published description of the young 

 of Casuarius australis. About the end of January, 1891, I saw in 



