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Show 1866.] MR. P. L. SCLATER ON CASUARIUS AUSTRALIS. 557 pi. 266), and read an extract from a letter addressed to him by Herr E. L. Landbeck, Subdirector of the National Museum of Santiago, Chili, in which it was stated that these two apparently verv different birds must be regarded as sexes of the same species-E. fernandensis being the male, and E. stokesi the female. The Museum of Santiago had sent two expeditions to Juan Fernandez ; and on each occasion these birds were observed paired, and the red and green young ones found together in the same nest. It followed, therefore, that the examples of each of these birds without the metallic crown, spoken of by Mr. Gould, were to be regarded as in the young plumage of each sex. Of these, examples had likewise been transmitted to Mr. Sclater by Herr Landbeck. Mr. P. L. Sclater exhibited a small bundle of feathers of a species of Cassowary, supposed to be those of Casuarius australis, which had been taken out of a native hut in Northern Queensland, and were of great interest as being the only portion of this bird ever brought to Europe, the skin of the original specimen procured by the late Mr. Thomas Wall having been unfortunately lost*. Mr. Sclater stated that he had been informed by Mr. Walter J. Scott, who had an extensive sheep-run in the Valley of Lagoons on the Upper Burdekin River, about 100 miles westward of Rockingham Bay, that this bird was well known in the neighbourhood of Rockingham Bay under the name of the Black Emu, but was shy and very difficult to obtain. In relation to this subject, Mr. Sclater read the following extracts from a letter addressed to him by Mr. Walter J. Scott:- " I fear I can tell you but little about the Black Emus or Cassowaries seen in the neighbourhood of Rockingham Bay, Queensland. I have never had the fortune to come across one myself, but have received information of them being seen on three or four occasions, in spots thirty or forty miles apart. I saw some black troopers of the native police returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of one they had seen about three miles from our Vale of Herbert Station (in lat. 18° S.). They were of course perfectly familiar with the Common Emu, and they informed me the bird they had seen was quite distinct from it. They described it as considerably smaller, and with a red head. It was on a piece of open ground, near a scrub, along a running stream. When they got within about 100 yards of it, it ran into the scrub, and they did not get a shot at it. "The Superintendent of the same station told me on a former occasion he had seen two Black Emus, thinking they were a mere chance variety. Another person in our employment saw one on the ' Separation Creek' of Leichhardt, which is really a tributary of the Herbert River. I think one was also seen in the immediate neighbourhood of Cardwell. I have written to m y brother Charles to use every exertion to procure you a specimen, and have told him to offer a reward for one, to stimulate the zeal of any one who may come across one. The Common E m u is. very plentiful with us ; and my * See Proc. Zool. Soc. 1857, p. 270, and Gould's Handb. B. Austr. ii. p. 206. |
