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Show 474 MR. E. BLYTH ON ROLLULUS SUPERCILIOSUS. [May 9, of the Sydney Museum, giving the description of a Cassowary lately obtained by Mr. G. Randall Johnson at Buckingham Bay, and also alluding to one shot by Mr. Thomas Wall while on the expedition to Cape York with the late Mr. E. B. Kennedy. " I have just seen the bird sent to the Museum by Mr. Johnson, and think it is identical with that shot by Mr. Wall in the vicinity of Weymouth Bay in November 1848 ; but the description given of the latter as quoted from Gould's work on 'Australian Birds' is not correct. I am aware that in the few remarks on Wall's bird, which appear in m y narrative of Kennedy's expedition, there is an error as to the colour of its helmet or comb, which was black, not red (the redness referred to the wattles), an error which I have before corrected. As I was present when Wall's bird was shot, and helped to eat it, I had a good opportunity of knowing something about it. Instead of going in flocks of five or six together, it is certainly a solitary bird, and would appear to be very scarce, as only two others were seen by our party during the whole journey from Rockingham Bay to my furthest camp at Weymouth Bay, in latitude 12° 25' S. This bird had shorter but larger legs, a heavier body, and shorter neck than the Emu, the colour very dark, its habits, too, being unlike those of the Emu. It appears to confine itself to the gullies in the thick jungles with the Brush-Turkeys and Jungle-fowl, feeding on the various fruits found there, even swallowing the large seeds of Casta-nospermum and Pandanus. Mr. Wall took every care of the skin he was able to do; but it was completely destroyed before he died, together with m y own specimens at Weymouth Bay. This bird was certainly very large, and furnished our whole party with a better supper and breakfast than we had enjoyed for some months, or than poor Wall was destined to enjoy again (as he and all his companions, with the exception of myself and one other, had died in six weeks after from want of food) ; but there was not one in the party who would not have eaten more if he could have got it, every meal being divided with the greatest nicety, and having been so for a long time. " I am, Sir, yours, & c, "W. GARRON." A letter was read, addressed to Professor Owen by Sir Walter Elliot, K.S.I., F.Z.S., and communicated to the Society by Prof. Owen, containing some corrections of notes contributed by Sir Walter Elliot to paper recently contributed by Prof. Owen to the Society's * Transactions' *. This letter will be published entire in the Society's ' Transactions.' Mr. E. Blyth, C.M.Z.S., exhibited a skin of a Quail shot near Missouree, new to the fauna of Continental India. This species had been described and figured in the ' Knowsley Menagerie,' pt. 2, as Rollulus superciliosus; but Mr. Blyth considered that it belonged * " On some Indian Cetacea collected by Walter Elliot, Esq." By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.Z.S., &c. (Trans. Zool. Soc. vi. p. 17). |