566 FLIGHTLESS BIRDS. 



accompanied by vigorous kickings and many bendings of the neck. In spite of 

 their speed, and the rapidity with which they move their limbs, cassowaries do not 

 run, after the manner of an ostrich, but may be rather said to trot. 



As regards their breeding-habits in a wild state very little has been ascei-tained ; 

 although it would appear that at this season they associate only in pairs. From 

 native reports concerning the rare Ceram cassowary, Mr. Wallace wrote that the 

 female laid from three to five eggs, which were brooded by each sex in turn ; but 

 from observations made on menagerie specimens, it appears that all the work of 

 hatching devolves upon the cock, the period of incubation being about seven weeks. 

 Although cassowaries will lay freely, it is but seldom that the eggs are hatched in 

 captivity. In colour, the latter are dark green, with the surface of the shell beauti- 

 fully granulated, or shagreened. The young cassowaries, in which the position of 

 the helmet is indicated by a flat homy plate, are carefully tended and fed by the 

 cock bird until able to shift for themselves. 



Originally applied indifferently to the members of both the 

 The Emeus. i • i i i • . 



precedmg and the present genus, the name emeu (which is itself a 



derivative from the Portuguese word eraea, meaning apparently a crane, and then 

 any large bird) is now by common consent restricted to the latter. Agreeing with 

 the cassowaries in the features mentioned on p. 562, the emeus — of which the two 

 species are restricted to Australia and some of the adjacent islands — are distin- 

 guished by the absence of a helmet, the complete feathering of the head and neck, 

 and the normal length of the claw of the second toe ; the claws of all three toes 

 being much shorter than in the allied genus. They are further characterised by the 

 beak being depressed and bix)ad, instead of nari^ow, compressed, and keeled ; as they 

 are by the absence of the bare black quills in the still more rudimentary wing. 

 Standing next in point of size among living birds to the ostrich, the common emeu 

 {DroracBus novce-hollandicc) of Eastern Australia, has the general hue of the plumage 

 light brown, mottled in some parts with grey ; the individual feathers being of a 

 uniform blackish grey, except near the tips, where they are black, with a broad 

 subterminal band of rufous. This species which, from incessant pursuit, has been 

 well-nigh exterminated even on the mainland, formerly also existed in Tasmania 

 and the islands of Bass Straits, where it has completely disappeared. In Western 

 Australia it is replaced by the spotted emeu {D. irroratua), a bird of more slender 

 build, having the feathers barred with white and dark grey, and terminating in a 

 black spot with a rufous margin. W^hile the two sexes of the adult are nearly 

 similar, the young of the common emeu have the ground-colour of the plumage 

 greyish white, with two stripes of black down the back, and two others on each 

 side, both being divided by a narrow median streak of white, these stripes being 

 continued on to the head, where they break up into spots, while there are also 

 others on the fore-neck and breast, which terminate on the thighs. Like the 

 cassowaries, the emeus are represented by an extinct species from the superficial 

 deposits of Australia. 



„ ^.^ At one time abundant on the mainland of Australia, in the 



Habits. ' 



neighbourhood of Botany Bay and Port Jackson, where it formed as 

 characteristic a feature in the landscape as the kangaroos and wallabies, the emeu 

 is now only to be met with in the far interior, where it is yearly becoming scarcer 



