HON. W. ROTHSCHILD ON THE GENUS CASUARIUS. 115 



Young (three-fifths grown). Plumage yellowish or rufous brown mixed with black. 

 Fore-neck dull indigo-blue ; head and occiput pale dull blue ; hind-neck dull orange- 

 red, naked lower sides of neck blue, posteriorly mixed livid purple and dull red. 



Young (full-grown). Plumage black, mixed with a few rufous feathers. Fore-neck 

 indigo-blue; head and occiput pale blue ; hind-neck scarlet, naked lower sides of neck 

 blue anteriorly, passing through plum-purple to scarlet posteriorly. 



Chick. Head and neck rufous, paler below ; three broad stripes on back, one 

 irregular stripe on each side reaching from the anus to the wing, and two other lateral 

 stripes extending to the thighs, the last two broken up into irregular blotches. 



Hah. Ceram. 



As shown in the synonymy, the Ceram Cassowary is the oldest known member of the 

 genus. In the year 1595 a number of merchants in Amsterdam formed a company, 

 and sent out four vessels to open communication with the Eastern Archipelago and to 

 bring home spices and other valuable merchandise. In December 1596 the ships were 

 anchored at Sydayo, in Java, and it was there that Jan Jacobsz Schellinger, the skipper 

 of the ship ' Amsterdam,' was presented with a Cassowary, which had been brought to 

 Java from Banda Island. This was a day or two before Schellinger was murdered by 

 the chief of Sydayo. Although the ship 'Amsterdam' was left and burnt, the 

 wonderful " large fowl " was brought on board of one of the other vessels and was 

 landed alive at Amsterdam in 1597. It was at first exhibited to the public for some 

 months, then came into the hands of Count George Everard Solms, of s'Gravenhage, 

 who kept it for a long time at the Hague, and afterwards presented it to the Elector, 

 Prince Ernestus of Cologne, who, again, subsequently gave it to the Emperor Rudolphus 

 the Second. Count Solms, before parting with the bird, had an excellent coloured 

 picture made of it, from which the very good figure in Clusius, representing the bird, 

 one of its feathers, and an egg, was taken. This figure has been copied into several 

 other works. A wretched figure of the same bird was also published in the diary of 

 the long and dangerous voyage during which it was first observed by Europeans, and 

 this figure is reproduced by Aldrovandus. In 1666 Olearius, in his somewhat 

 despicable work ' Die Gottorffische Kunstkammer,' assures us that one had been kept 

 alive at Gottorff in Schleswig ; but he does not say how it was procured. Olearius's 

 description is very amusing, but short and not very accurate. Valentyn (1726) seems to 

 have been the first to give the actual home of this bird, which is Ceram. He says that 

 some Dutchmen found it sitting on three eggs on that island as long ago as 1660. 

 Valentyn also says that the Cassowary occurring in Aru differs from that of Ceram. 

 Other writers have stated Sumatra, Ceylon, and all sorts of places to be inhabited by 

 Cassowaries, and even Linnaeus said: "Habitat in Asia, Sumatra, Molucca, Banda." 

 Up to the present day erroneous statements respecting the home of Casuarius casuarius 

 have often been made, but it is evident that of all the Moluccan islands only Ceram is 

 inhabited by a Cassowary. 



