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Show 84 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE CASSOWARIES [Feb. 16, The mechanism above described is stated by Dr. Alix* to have been first indicated by Bergmann, as far as the anatomical arrangement is concerned, although Strauss-Durckheim, in his 'Theologie de la Nature,' was the first to explain it fully. Dr. Alix himself has alsof entered into the detail of the movement " of elongation " of the radius, which is well explained in his large work above referred toj. My object in bringing the subject before the Society is to draw special attention to so important a point, and to illustrate its action by a wooden model, which demonstrates its accuracy in a very striking manner. It may be here mentioned that the movement of the general plane of the wing during both the up and down stroke, which by Borelli and his followers is ascribed to the elastic yielding of the feathers in birds, and of the wing-membrane in insects, appears to me rather to be dependent on the torsion of the bones or main nervure of the wing, the power of lateral flexion in which is proved by M . Marey's discovery of the figure-of-8 action in the insect. A thin wooden lath employed as a nervure to an artificial wing, if set with its narrow section vertical and fixed to a non-yielding horizontal wing, gives a vertical figure-of-8 when moved up and down, the plane changing exactly as it is described by M . Marey in the insect. 2. Further Remarks on the Cassowaries living in the Society's Gardens, and on other Species of the Genus Casuarius. B y P. L. S C L A T E R , M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Societv. [Eeceived January 20, 1875.] (Plates XVII1.-XX.) The recent additions to our series of Cassowaries are of great interest, and seem to necessitate some further remarks upon a subject to which I have more than once directed the Society's attention. On the 27th of M a y last year, we purchased of Mr. Broughton of the * Paramatta,' who seldom returns from Sydney without bringing some welcome addition to our collection, a not quite adult Cassowary, which, as I am informed, had been brought to Sydney in the month of April, 1873, by Mr. Godfrey Goodman, Medical Officer of H.M.S. ' Basilisk,' and had lived some eight or nine months in the Botanic Gardens there §. This Cassowary was entered in the register as a Mooruk ; and not being at the time aware of its history, I did not pay special attention to it. Later in the summer, having become aware of its * ' Essai sur l'appareil locomoteur des Oiseaux,' Paris, 1874, p. 230. t Bulletin de la Societ6 Philoinathique, 1864. J Loc. cit. p. 330 et seq. § In a letter just received from Dr. G. Bennett he informs m e that he has ascertained from Mr. Goodman that this bird was obtained when quite young from the natives at Discovery Bay, in Milne Bay, on the S.E. coast of New Guinea. Several other specimens of the same bird were subsequentlv brought on board and purchased. |