8o CAT-BIRD— CECOMORPH^ 



have been continually imported into Europe, so that it has become 

 one of the best -known members of the subclass Ratitse, and a 

 description of it seems hardly necessary. For a long time its 

 glossy, but coarse and hair-like, black plumage, its lofty helmet, 

 the gaudily -coloured caruncles of its neck, and the four or five 

 barbless quills which represent its wing-feathers, made it appear 

 unique among birds. But in 1857 Dr. George Bemiett certified 

 the existence of a second and perfectly distinct species of 

 Cassowary, an inhabitant of New Britain, where it was known to 

 the natives as the Mooruk, and in his honour it was named by 

 Gould C. bennetti. Several examples were soon after received in 

 this country, and these confirmed the view of it akeady taken. 

 Nine good species, with the possibility of a tenth, are recognized 

 by Prof. Sah'adori in his gi'eat work, Ornithologia della Papuasia e 

 delle Molucche (iii. pp. 473-503), the heads of all of them having 

 been previously figured by him in an excellent monograph of the 

 genus {Mem. Accad. Sc. Torino, 1882), from various localities in the 

 same Subregion. Conspicuous among them from its large size and 

 lofty helmet is the C. australis, from the northern parts of Queens- 

 land. Its existence indeed had been ascertained, by the late Mr. 

 T. S. "Wall, in 1854, but the specimen obtained by that unfortunate 

 explorer was lost, and it was not until 1866 that an example was 

 submitted to competent natui-alists {Five. Zool. Sac. 1867, p. 241). 



Not much seems to be known of the habits of any of the 

 Cassowaries in a state of nature ; but Prof. Salvadori {ut supra) 

 has collected, with his usual assiduity, almost everything that can 

 be said on the subject. Though the old species occurs rather 

 plentifully over the Avhole of the interior of Ceram, Mr. Wallace 

 was unable to obtain or even to see an example. They all appear 

 to bear captivity well, and the hens in confinement frequently lay 

 their dark green and rough-shelled eggs, which, according to the 

 custom of the Batitx, are incubated by the cocks. The nestling 

 plumage is mottled {Proc. Zool. Sue. 1863, pi. xlii.), and Avhen 

 about half-gi'own they are clothed in dishevelled feathers of a deep 

 tawny colour. 



CAT-BIKD in North America is the name of a common and fami- 

 liar summer-visitant, Mimus carolinensis, one of the Mockincj-birds, 

 Avhich in addition to the mewing and harsh cry for which it is 

 notorious, is also a remarkably good songster ; in Australia the 

 birds of the genus Ailuroidus (Bower-bird), and especially A. crassi- 

 rostris, or smifhi of some authors, are so called for the same reason. 



CECOMOPtPH^, the third group of Prof. Huxley's Suborder 

 SCHIZOGNATH.E (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1867, pp. 457, 458), composed of 



former nation, whose names for places and various natural objects would be 

 imparted to their emploj'ers (see Aleatkos, Booby, and Dodo). 



