APPENDIX. 



561 



Family STRUTHIONID^. 



Sp. 18. CASUARIUS BENNETTI, Gould. 



MOORUK. 



Casuarius bennetti, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part xxv. p. 269, 



pi. 129. 

 Mooruk, Aborigines of New Britain. 



Casuarius bennetti, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol.. Supplement, pi. 



Who would have supposed the former existence of an 

 extensive group of Struthious birds of great magnitude and 

 comprising many species? and what naturalist would have 

 imagined that so much of the bony structures of these birds 

 would have been brought to light — that not only their generic 

 but their specific characters may be accurately described, and 

 even their entire skeletons mounted in our museums? Yet 

 these things have been realized within the last few years, the 

 indefatigable zeal and careful study of Professor Owen having 

 enabled him to determine and arrange the semi-fossilized re- 

 mains of numerous species of a great family of birds which 

 formerly existed on our globe, and of which some few remain 

 to testify as to the character of their plumage and their eco- 

 nomy of Hfe. The Casuarius bennetti is one of the few living 

 representatives of this almost extinct group, and its discovery 

 must be hailed with interest, tending as it does to throw a 

 light on the history of those huge birds of remote antiquity — 

 the Binornis and its allies. Professor Owen considers this 

 new bird and the Cassowary {Casuarius galeatus) to be the 

 most nearly allied living types of his genus Palapteryx ; and 

 if this opinion be correct, we may infer that the habits and 

 economy, as well as the kind of plumage and the character 

 of country inhabited by the extinct birds, were very similar. 

 The Mooruk lives reclusely in the gullies and humid parts of 

 dense forests, feeding upon the roots of ferns and plants pe- 



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