44 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSETM. 



Let lis now revert to the oi'itjinal description of Casxan'us 

 johnso)n', published in " The Australasian " and subsequently 

 in the " Pi-oceedings of the Zoological Society of London." It 

 will be noted that Dr. Mueller, even then widely known for his 

 high scientific attainments, whether intentionally or not, omits 

 to make any reference to Mr. W. S. Wall's description of a 

 similar bird, thirteen years before, under the name of ('dsuKrius 

 aid^fndis, in the " Illustrated Sydney News " of 3rd June, 

 1854, and which Gould had transcribed intt) his " Handbook 

 to the Birds of Australia " piiblished in 1865^. Moreover, 

 Carron had so far back as 1849 made reference to a Cassowary 

 from Northern Queensland in his " Narrative of Kennedy's 

 Expedition fi'om Rockingham Bay to Cape York." 



At a meeting of the Zoological Societ_y of London, held on 

 the 11th June, 1868^ -Dr. (then Mr.) P.L. Sclater, exhibited a 

 veiy fine and pei'fect skin of the Australian Cassowarv 

 (CiisiKiviiis axsfrulis-)^ which had been transmitted to him bv Mr. 

 Charles J. Scott, of Queensland, and was believed to be the first 

 example of this bird that had reached Eui'ope. 



*' The present specimen of the Australian Cassowarv had 

 been shot in the beginning of November last by Mr. Henry 

 Stone, overseer to Messrs. Scott Brothers & Co., at their station 

 in the Vale of Herbert, in the same scrub from which the 

 specimen described by Mr. Kreff t in the Society's 'Proceedings' 

 for 1867 (p. 482) had been procured." 



The late Baron von Muellei-, altliough of world-wide fame as 

 a Botanist, was not an Ornithologist, and it is remarkable that 

 being in the same city he did not submit ^Ir. Johnson's 

 desci'iption to the late Sir Frederick McCoy, the eminent 

 Director of the National Museum, Melbourne, and a high 

 authority on the Australian avi-fauna. This is more extra- 

 ordinary seeing that both Dr. Mueller and Professor McCoy 

 were members of the Council of the Acclimatisation Society 

 of Victoria, and their names among othei-s appear next one 

 another as having attended the usual weekly meeting on Tues- 

 dav, lltli December, 1866, only four days before Pi-. Mueller 



" Gould— Handhk. Bds. .Austr.. ii., 1865, p. 206. 

 " Proc. Zool. Soc, IS68, p. 37b. 



