84 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE CASSOWARIES [Feb. 16, 
The mechanism above described is stated by Dr. Alix* to have 
been first indicated by Bergmann, as far as the anatomical arrange- 
ment is concerned, although Strauss-Diirckheim, in his ‘Théologie 
de la Nature,’ was the first to explain it fully. Dr. Alix himself 
has also} entered into the detail of the movement ‘of elongation”’ 
of the radius, which is well explained in his large work above referred 
tot. My object in bringing the subject before the Society is to 
draw special attention to so important a point, and to illustrate its 
action by a wooden model, which demonstrates its accuracy in a very 
striking manner. 
It may be here mentioned that the movement of the general plane 
of the wing during both the up and down stroke, which by Borelli 
and his followers is ascribed to the elastic yielding of the feathers in 
birds, and of the wing-membrane in insects, appears to me rather 
to be dependent on the torsion of the bones or main nervure of the 
wing, the power of lateral flexion in which is proved by M. Marey’s 
discovery of the figure-of-8 action in the insect. A thin wooden 
lath employed as a nervure to an artificial wing, if set with its 
narrow section vertical and fixed to a non-yielding horizontal wing, 
gives a vertical figure-of-8 when moved up and down, the plane 
changing exactly as it is described by M. Marey in the insect. 
2. Further Remarks on the Cassowaries living in the Society’s 
Gardens, and on other Species of the Genus Casuarius. 
By P. L. Scuarzr, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to 
the Society. 
[Received January 29, 1875.] 
(Plates XVITI.—XX.) 
The recent additions to our series of Cassowaries are of great in- 
terest, and seem to necessitate some further remarks upon a subject 
to which I have more than once directed the Society’s attention. 
On the 27th of May last year, we purchased of Mr. Broughton of 
the ‘ Paramatta,’ who seldom returns from Sydney without bringing 
some welcome addition to our collection, a not quite adult Cassowary, 
which, as I am informed, had been brought to Sydney in the month 
of April, 1873, by Mr. Godfrey Goodman, Medical Officer of H.M.S. 
‘Basilisk,’ and had lived some eight or nine months in the Botanic Gar- 
dens there§. This Cassowary was entered in the register as a Mooruk ; 
and not being at the time aware of its history, I did not pay special 
attention to it. Later in the summer, having become aware of its 
* ¢Hssai sur l'appareil locomoteur des Oiseaux,’ Paris, 1874, p. 230. 
+ Bulletin de la Société Philomathique, 1864. 
t Loe. cit. p. 330 et seq. 
§ In a letter just received from Dr. G. Bennett he informs me that he has 
ascertained from Mr. Goodman that this bird was obtained when quite young 
from the natives at Discovery Bay, in Milne Bay, on the 8.H. coast of New 
Guinea. Several other specimens of the same bird were subsequently brought 
on board and purchased, 
