II CASUARIIDAE 
Ww 
(os) 
the aftershaft of the contour feathers 1s extremely large, so that 
they appear to be double; three front toes are present, with 
shortened mid-phalanges and large claws; and the two clavicles 
do not meet. The lack of ornamental wing- or tail-plumes, and 
the hair-like nature of the coat is also characteristic, while, as 
opposed to hea, there is no indication of syringeal muscles. 
Within the group itself the Cassowaries are distinguished from 
the Emeus by the points next to be mentioned. The former have 
a compressed keeled beak and a large casque of bony tissue upon the 
bare head, the greater part of the neck being also naked and in 
most cases wattled; the remiges are reduced to thick black barb- 
less quills from four to six in number, and the inner toe has a 
particularly long sharp claw. Emeus, on the contrary, have a 
broad depressed beak, short feathers on the head and neck, no 
helmet, wattles, or spines on the wing, and an ordinary claw on 
the inner toe. Both Familes have long necks, stout metatarsi 
covered with coarse roundish scales, and toes padded below; the 
tibia being nearly, if not quite, covered by the plumage. 
Fam. I. Casuariidae.—Following Professor Salvadori,! Casso- 
waries may be divided into two groups: the first with the helmet 
laterally compressed, and the second where it is triangular and pyra- 
midal, or even depressed. They are all large birds, though smaller 
than Emeus, which are only surpassed in size among existing forms 
by the Ostrich; the colour of the coarse but glossy hair-like plumage 
is black, and similar in both sexes; the hen is bigger than the 
cock, as is also the case in the Dromaeidae and Apterygidae. 
Of the first of the above groups, Casuarius tricarunculatus, 
from Warbusi in New Guinea, which is possibly a “sport,” has 
two lateral wattles on the fore-neck and a third small median 
caruncle at a lower level. (C. bicarunculatus, of the Aru Islands, 
has two long distant reddish-violet wattles, a black casque, bluish- 
green head, and blue neck with some red behind. C. galeatus of 
Ceram, the species first known to ornithologists, is similarly 
coloured, though less brightly, and has the flesh-coloured throat- 
wattles close together, and a naked reddish-purple space on each 
side ofthe neck. The larger C. australis of North-East Australia 
has a higher helmet, a brighter blue throat, and a few scattered 
hairs on the wattles, which Wall, who discovered the species, said 
were coloured with blue and scarlet. (C. becearii of the Aru Islands, 
1 Ornitologia Papuasia e Molucche, iii. Torino, 1882, p. 473. 
VOL. IX D 
