296 
The Animal-Lore of Shaksjpeare’s Time . 
To beard him to his teeth, to tlT work of death they go; 
The crowds like to a sea seem’d waving to and fro.” 
(Song xxii.) 
The near relatives of the ostrich, the Cassawary, and 
the Emeu, are described by various travellers. 
Cassawary. T - _ 
in an account oi the first voyage of the Dutch 
to the East Indies, the narrator informs us that— 
“ on the third day of December they came to Tuban and Cydaia 
[Java], where they bought nutmegs and cloves, and the Sabander gave 
them a great fowle called me, about foure foot in height, somewhat 
like an ostrich, saving that the foote were not cloven.” (Purchas, 
vol. i. p. 708.) 
In the same collection of travels a Portuguese traveller 
describes the coast of Zanzibar, and writes 
“ From Magadoxo to Sacotora one hundred and fiftie leagues is a 
desart coast, and dishabited without rivers. In which desarts breed 
the great birds, called emas, which breed on the sands, and have but 
two young ones, as pigeons. Their stomachs will consume iron and 
stones, and they dye not but touch the ground with their feet, running 
with their wings spread, as lightly as other birds flye. They are 
white, ash-coloured; their egges white, holding almost three pints.” 
(Purchas , vol. ii. p. 1556.) 
In an account of Sumatra written by John Nieuhoff, a 
Dutch traveller, published in Harris’s collection of travels, 
the writer asserts that “ the bird is called emeu , or erne, 
by the natives, and casuaris by the Duch.” After a very 
correct description of the emeu, the narrator evidently 
considers himself entitled to draw on his imagination 
as a relief, and informs us that it is exceeding greedy, 
“ devouring everything it meets with, even to iron and 
burning coals.” 
The first emeu was seen in Europe in 1597, when the 
Dutch travellers brought one home on their return from 
their first voyage to the East Indies. This specimen was 
given them as a great curiosity by one of the Javanese 
princes, as a token of friendship. 
