CASUARIIDAE 



33 



the aftershaft of the contour feathers is extremely large, so that 

 they appear to be double; three front toes are present, with 

 shortened mid-phalanges and large claws ; and the two clavicles 

 do not meet. The lack of ornamental wing- or tail- plumes, and 

 the hair-like nature of the coat is also characteristic, while, as 

 opposed to Wica, there is no indication of syringeal muscles. 

 "\\^ithin the group itself the Cassowaries are distinguished from 

 the Emeus by the points next to be mentioned. The former have 

 a compressed keeled beak and a large casque of bony tissue upon the 

 bare head, the greater part of the neck being also naked and in 

 most cases wattled ; the remiges are reduced to thick black barb- 

 less quills from four to six in number, and the inner toe has a 

 particularly long sharp claw. Emeus, on the contrary, have a 

 broad depressed beak, short feathers on the head and neck, no 

 helmet, wattles, or spines on the wing, and an ordinary claw on 

 the inner toe. Both Families have long necks, stout metatarsi 

 covered with coarse roundish scales, and toes padded below ; the 

 tibia being nearly, if not quite, covered by the plumage. 



Eam. I. Oasuariidae. — Following Professor Salvadori,^ Casso- 

 waries may be divided into two groups : the first with the helmet 

 laterally compressed, and the second where it is triangular and pyra- 

 midal, or even depressed. They are all large birds, though smaller 

 than Emeus, which are only surpassed in size among existing forms 

 by the Ostrich ; the colour of the coarse but glossy hair-like plumage 

 is black, and similar in both sexes ; the hen is bigger than the 

 cock, as is also the case in the Dromaeidae and Apterygidae. 



Of the first of the above groups, Casuarius tricar unculatiis, 

 from Warbusi in New Guinea, which is possibly a " sport," has 

 two lateral wattles on the fore-neck and a third small median 

 caruncle at a lower level. C Mcarunculatus, of the Aru Islands, 

 has two long distant reddish-violet wattles, a black casque, bluish- 

 green head, and blue neck with some red behind. C. galeatus of 

 Ceram, the species first known to ornithologists, is similarly 

 coloured, though less brightly, and has the flesh-coloured throat- 

 wattles close together, and a naked reddish-purple space on each 

 side of the neck. The larger C. australis of North-East Australia 

 has a higher helmet, a brighter blue throat, and a few scattered 

 hairs on the wattles, which Wall, who discovered the species, said 

 were coloured with blue and scarlet. C. beccarii of the Aru Islands, 



' Ornitologia Papuasia r Molucehe, iii. Torino, 1882, p. 473. 

 VOL. IX D 



