HABITS OF CASSOWARY 275 



and are of a very dark green colour. It is only by the 

 darkness of colour that I have usually been able to 

 distinguish cassowary from emu eggs, the latter often 

 being light green in tint. As with the emu, it is the 

 cock bird which incubates the eggs and generally looks 

 after the hatched young ; but both parents remain with 

 the brood until the young are fully grown or nearly so. 

 Thus, when the breeding season is well over, five or six 

 cassowaries may be seen together, and this is the greatest 

 number I have ever seen in a flock. 



The cassowary is a shy and wary bird, and it is but 

 rarely that the natives succeed in killing or capturing the 

 fully grown ones. The young, however, are sometimes 

 caught by being driven into pitfalls from which they 

 cannot leap like their parents ; and some of the young are 

 killed by dingoes, though these animals run great risk of 

 attack from the old birds. 



Contrary to the general assertion of popular works 

 on natural history, the Australian cassowary is not a 

 forest-haunting bird. It prefers scrub-covered country, and 

 its range of vision is very great, and its power of scent 

 not less acute. It is almost omnivorous in its diet, though 

 fruit and vegetable substances seem to form the bulk of 

 its food. It will, however, pounce upon any stray rat or 

 lizard that comes in its way ; and I have seen one seize 

 a water tortoise, and, with one well-directed blow against a 

 stone, smash the shell and then swallow the unfortunate 

 animal as a thrush will a snail. The emu has been seen 

 to do the same thing ; in fact, both species eat a quantity 

 of animal matter, just as both eat berries and scratch the 

 ground like hens in search of roots and minute substances, 

 the nature of which I could not ascertain, but which are 

 probably the larvae of insects, eggs of worms, flies, 

 locusts, etc. 



The cassowary has the habit off rolling in dust and 

 sand, like a hen, and when doing so it often turns com- 

 pletely on its back, kicking the air violently with its feet. 

 Cassowaries are in all respects more lively birds than 

 emus ; they often playfully chase each other, and have a 



