152 ME. W. K. PAEKEE ON THE STEUCTUEB AND 



I have already spoken of the skull of the adult Emu, and shall here merely recapitu- 

 late some points, and add a few more. The drawings which were made by me many 

 years ago from the specimen of D. irroratus in the King's CoUege Museum, need not 

 be given. 



The sutures both above and beloAV are nearly obliterated from the skull proper ; a 

 little of the sagittal suture is seen close behind the exposed upper ethmoid ; the nasal 

 processes of the intermaxillaries (thoroughly confluent) do not reach to this broad plate. 

 The characteristic lateral groove in the side of each intermaxillary and dentary is inten- 

 sified in size and depth. The terminal diverging rami of the vomer have become more 

 divergent, and the palatine fenestra has become so large as to make the bone a mere 

 irregular ring. All the bones of the maxillary and intermaxillary regions keep their 

 distinctness. The aliethmoid has become bony further down, and has joined the ossified 

 pars plana ; the interorbital septum has lost its fenestra, being filled up with periosteal 

 layers, and the nasal septum, now relatively less, has become ossified continuously with 



the ethmoid. 



Casuarius Bennettii (The Mooruk). 



I have been very fortunate in obtaining from the Gardens of the Zoological Society 

 two young Mooruks at the time of hatching, both imperfect, but the one more than 

 supplementing the other. It is not for nothing that the Cassowary has a sort of porcu- 

 pine's quills growing out of its wings, as though it were contemplating the shearing of 

 all its (very simple) plumes, ready to become one of the hairy class — the Mammals. I was 

 not aware, and I had it from the mouth of my friend Professor Huxley that he was not 

 aware, how much of the essential mammal there is hidden under the plumy cloak of the 

 Cassowary ; and yet, compared with other birds, the Cassowary is low and reptilian ; 

 what the Chimaera is to the more elegant typical fishes, that the Cassowary is to ordinary 

 birds ; not, indeed, to the same extent is this difference, yet it is the same in kind. 



These strong-bodied borderers, having certainly laws of their own, are yet only partially 

 amenable to the law (morphological law) of the more inland tribes of the regions between 

 which they lie. Here then the morphologist has presented to him one of those " oblique 

 and intei-woven windings and knots of nature " of which Bacox speaks ; and no little 

 pleasure and profit wiU accrue to him who shall even partially untie a knot like this. 



The ornithic discrepancies of this bird must be detailed now ; and if the present paper 

 should throw any real light upon the bearings of this bird's skull, and show how its 

 morphology looks backwards to the cold-blooded classes, forwards to the Mammals, and 

 upwards to the innumerable members of its own (feathered) group, my labour will not 

 have been in vain. 



The transversely oval occipital condyle (Plate XIV. fig. 2, o.c.) has on its upper surface 

 a cleft, in which lie the compressed remains of the notochord ; this condyle is not yet 

 ossified. This embryonic remnant, a little further forwards, is enclosed in the cartilage, 

 nearer the top than the bottom ; it is gradually lost in the basioccipital bony centre. 



This centre {b.o.) would be elegantly lozenge-shaped, were it not that the fiont and 



