1866.] MR. P. L. SCLATER ON CASUARIUS AUSTRALIS. 557 



pi. 266), and read an extract from a letter addressed to him by 

 Herr E. L. Landbeck, Subdirector of the National Museum of San- 

 tiago, Chili, in which it was stated that these two apparently verv 

 different birds must be regarded as sexes of the same species — E. 

 fernandensis being the male, and E. stokesi the female. The Museum 

 of Santiago had sent two expeditions to Juan Fernandez ; and on each 

 occasion these birds were observed paired, and the red and green 

 young ones found together in the same nest. It followed, therefore, 

 that the examples of each of these birds without the metallic crown, 

 spoken of by Mr. Gould, were to be regarded as in the young plu- 

 mage of each sex. Of these, examples had likewise been transmitted 

 to Mr. Sclater by Herr Landbeck. 



Mr. P. L. Sclater exhibited a small bundle of feathers of a species 

 of Cassowary, supposed to be those of Casuarius australis, which 

 had been taken out of a native hut in Northern Queensland, and were 

 of great interest as being the only portion of this bird ever brought 

 to Europe, the skin of the original specimen procured by the late 

 Mr. Thomas Wall having been unfortunately lost*. Mr. Sclater 

 stated that he had been informed by Mr. Walter J. Scott, who 

 had an extensive sheep-run in the Valley of Lagoons on the Upper 

 Burdekin River, about 100 miles westward of Rockingham Bay, that 

 this bird was well known in the neighbourhood of Rockingham Bay 

 under the name of the Black Emu, but was shy and very difficult to 

 obtain. 



In relation to this subject, Mr. Sclater read the following extracts 

 from a letter addressed to him by Mr. Walter J. Scott : — 



"I fear I can tell you but little about the Black Emus or Casso- 

 waries seen in the neighbourhood of Rockingham Bay, Queensland. 

 I have never had the fortune to come across one myself, but have 

 received information of them being seen on three or four occasions, 

 in spots thirty or forty miles apart. I saw some black troopers of 

 the native police returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of one they 

 had seen about three miles from our Vale of Herbert Station (in 

 lat. 18° S.). They were of course perfectly familiar with the Com- 

 mon Emu, and they informed me the bird they had seen was quite 

 distinct from it. They described it as considerably smaller, and with 

 a red head. It was on a piece of open ground, near a scrub, along 

 a running stream. When they got within about 100 yards of it, it 

 ran into the scrub, and they did not get a shot at it. 



"The Superintendent of the same station told me on a former oc- 

 casion he had seen two Black Emus, thinking they were a mere 

 chance variety. Another person in our employment "saw one on the 

 ' Separation Creek ' of Leichhardt, which is really a tributary of the 

 Herbert River. I think one was also seen in the immediate neio-h- 

 bourhood of Cardwell. I have written to my brother Charles to use 

 every exertion to procure you a specimen, and have told him to offer 

 a reward for one, to stimulate the zeal of any one who may come 

 across one. The Common Emu is very plentiful with us ; and my 

 * See Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857, p. 270, and Gould's Handb. B. Austr. ii. p. 206. 



