PLATE XLVII. 



FAMILY STRUTH ION ID^E. 



rpHIS section of the Grallatores is perhaps, one of the most interesting, for it is now only represented 

 -L by isolated types in three-fifths of the world, while fossil remains prove to us that there was a 

 period when gigantic types of these strange birds were common inhabitants of our globe. These 

 Strut hioncs of the past are now represented by the Rheas in America ; the Ostriches in Africa ; the 

 Cassowaries and Emus in Australia and New Guinea, and in New Zealand by several species of the 

 Apt&ryx. 



GENUS CASUARIUS (Linnczus). 



GOULD assigned the habitat of this genus to New Guinea, and even supposed the species indigenous to 

 Australia would be proved to be the same ; however, as scientific investigation has not yet demonstrated 

 the truth or fallacy of his belief, I shall not give it the benefit of the doubt. The Cassowaries are 

 evidently the remains of a great family of Struthious birds closely allied to the Ostriches, Emus, and 

 and extinct Dinomithes of New Zealand, and two species are known to Australia, a third to New Britain. 



CASUARIUS AUST1ULIS (Wall). 



AUSTRALIAN CASSOWARY. Genus: Casuarius. 



Tl^HE first information of any worth respecting this peculiar bird was contained in a communication 

 J- to the Zoological Society of London on the 13th December, 1866, by Mr. Sclater, who stated 

 that he had been informed by Mr. Walter Scott, the owner of an extensive sheep run in the 

 Valley of Lagoons, on the Upper Burdekin River, about 100 miles westward of Rockingham Bay, that 

 in the neighbourhood of the latter locality the bird was well-known under the name of the Black Emu, 

 but was shy and very difficult to obtain. 



Two days later, December loth, 1866, on the other side of the world, the well-known eminent 

 botanist, Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, sent the following notice to The Australasian, a widely known 

 Melbourne paper : — 



" For the intelligence of the existence of an Australian Cassowarv, and for the means of defining 

 preliminarily its specific characters, I am indebted to G. Randall Johnston, Esq., who, in September last, 

 while on a visit to Rockingham Bay shot in the Gowrie Creek scrub the only specimen of this 

 remarkable bird as yet obtained, and whose name I wish it should bear ; and I cannot do better than 

 to give in the first instance publicity to the lucid remarks transmitted to me by that gentleman : — ' This 

 bird seems to confine itself almost entirely to the more open parts of the scrub, 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 observed that 

 hardly anything is known concerning it.'" 



