THE JACKSONIAN OOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 
acknowledged to be correct. In assuming this, one important connecting link is that the land shells 
(snails) found in the scrubs at the northern portion of the Cape York Peninsula, are identical with some 
of the species found in the scrubs on the south-coast of New Guinea. Adverting to the egg under 
notice, which was collected at New Britain during season of 1896, it is not surprising to find that it is 
very like that of the Queensland Cassowary, being of a greenish-white ground colour, covered with 
beautiful pea-green granulations, which are finer and smoother than in most specimens laid by the 
latter bird. On this egg, here and there, the granulations are confluent, and assume the form of 
straight ridge-like lines without interstices, along both sides being narrow open spaces of the greenish- 
white ground colour. Out of the sixteen of these straight ridges, the longest measures = 2°64 inches, 
and is only ‘o7 of an inch wide, and gives the egg quite a “cracked” appearance at first glance. The 
specimen under notice measures in inches = 5°22 x 3°65. The late Dr. Geo. Bennett, M.D., F.Z.S., 
etc., of Sydney, writing on this species in 1857, states:—‘‘I consider this to be one of the most 
important additions to ornithology I have ever brought before the scientific world. It is a member of 
nearly an extinct family of birds, a remnant of a group which played an important part in the economy 
of nature in periods long gone bye.” The Mooruk is rather a smaller and shorter bird than the 
Cassowary of the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, but the eggs are much alike both in size and 
colour, while the bird frequents the same class of scrubby situations as the Queensland species. The 
first pair of birds were found by Captain Devlin at New Britain, in 1856, and they arrived alive at the 
Zoological Societies Gardens, in London, on the 29th of May, 1858. 
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