242 LETTER FROM DR. MUELLER. [Feb. 28, 



gular portion immediately adjoining the feathers of indigO-blue, and 

 fluted or puffed, as it were, in ridges. At the bottom of the throat 

 are two pendent caruncles of a bright red colour, very similar to 

 those of the common turkey-cock, and 4 inches in length. 



" ' The wings are very small, and contain six quills resembling 

 those of the porcupine, the third pair from the upperside being 

 12 inches long, the pair immediately adjoining 11 inches, the next 

 pair G inches, and the lowest of all 2 inches and curved. 



"'The leg, from the knee-joint downwards, measured 12 inches, 

 and is very stout and powerful, whilst two of the toes of each foot 

 are 5 inches, and the centre one 7 inches long. The inside toe is 

 armed with a long sharp and strong nail, with which, no doubt, a 

 serious wound might be inflicted. The feathers are of a deep black 

 colour, and similar in shape to tliose of the Emu ; at a distance they 

 present the appearance of coarse hairs rather than of feathers, 



" ' On the upper part of the breast the bone appears to be flat- 

 tened, and the skin is bare of feathers, and very thick and horny. 



" ' The bird seems to confine itself almost entirely to the more 

 open parts of the scrubs, and seldom ventures far out on the plains. 

 During the months of July, August, and September its food consists 

 chiefly of an egg-shaped blue-skinned berry, the fruit of a large tree. 

 This, together with herbage, probably forms its diet, at least for that 

 portion of the year ; but at present its habits have been so little ob- 

 served that hardly anything is known concerning them.' 



" From these notes, and a sketch simultaneously received, it is 

 obvious that the Casuarius johiisonii must rank as a separate species. 

 The size of the bird may be the same as that of the Indian Casuarius 

 yaleatus ; the former, however, has the neck coloured with two 

 shades of blue, and wants the broad squalid-violet vitta ; and while 

 in the Indian Cassowary the black hairy plumage commences imme- 

 diately below the oblique violet band, and covers the lower portion 

 of the neck quite along the scarlet posterior caruncle, the Australian 

 bird shows an indigo-blue line descending in a cuneate-deltoid form 

 to the thorax, quite as deep as the two cervical anterior appendages. 

 The short lower curved quill is not noticed by any writer on the 

 Casuarius yaleatus, so far as I am aware, and seems, therefore, not 

 to exist in that species. The caruncular appendages towards the 

 sternum are given as pink in D'Orbigny's ' Dictionnaire Universel 

 d'Histoire Naturelle,' while Mr. Johnson describes them as bright 

 red in the Austrahan species." 



In referring to this letter Mr. Sclater called attention to the com- 

 munication he had made on the same subject to the Meeting on 

 December 13, 18G() (see P. Z. S. 18C6, p. 5o7), and remarked that 

 tbe bird was, no doubt, the Casuarius australis, Gould. 



The following papers were read : — 



