Ferdinand von Mueller

1

Letter not found. For the text given here, see 'The Naturalist', Australasian, 29 December 1866, p. 1221 (B66.12.02). See also M to the Editor of the Herald, 15 December 1867 (in this edition as 67-12-15c) (B66.12.05).

Discovery of a True Cassowary in North-East Australia

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AUSTRALASIAN.

Sir, —

It is my pleasing task to announce the discovery of a memorable bird belonging to the small group of Strathioniae, hitherto, with exception of extinct species, only represented by the ostrich of Africa and South-west Asia, the cassowary of India, the mooruk of New Britain, the nandu and the Darwinian rhea of South America, the emu of our continent, the two kiwi-kiwis of New Zealand. The new member added to this interesting series of birds consists in nothing less than a casoar or cassowary from North-east Australia, equally distinct from the typical species (Casuarius galeatus, Vieillot) which has such an extensive distribution over the Indian Archipelago and the Malayan Peninsula, and from the mooruk (Casuarius Bennettii, Gould) of the Admiralty Islands, which but a few years ago, through my friend Dr. George Bennett,

2

George Bennett, d. 1893.

of Sydney, was brought to zoological notice.

For the intelligence of the existence of an Australian true casoar, and for the means of defining preliminarily its specific characters, I am indebted to G. Randall Johnson, 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:—

"The cassowaries for some time past have been known to exist in the country about Rockingham Bay, but from their extreme shyness and caution have up to this time managed to escape every attempt to catch or kill them.

The specimen shot is a male bird, and closely resembles the helmeted cassowary, but is of smaller size, its greatest height when standing in a natural position being not more than four feet and a half. The head and neck are almost entirely bare of feathers, and the skin of different shades of blue and red. On the top of the head is a horny substance of dirty light-brown colour, the beak is black, the irides of rich light-brown; the skin from the beak along the top of the head, and extending five inches down the back of the neck, marine blue; below this, still following the back of the neck down to the point at which the feathers become thick, a length of five inches, the skin is of a cinnabar-red tint; the underside of the head and throat, from the beak downward, being of ultramarine, and the small triangular portion immediately adjoining the feathers of indigo blue, and fluted or puffed, as it were in ridges. At the bottom of the throat are two pendent caruncles of a bright red colour, very similar to those of the common turkeycock, and four inches in length.

The wings are very small, and contain six quills resembling those of the porcupine, the thirds from the upper side being twelve inches long, the pair immediately adjoining eleven inches, the next pair six inches, and the lowest of all two inches and curved.

The leg, from the knee-joint downwards, measured twelve inches, and is very stout and powerful, whilst two of the toes of each foot are five inches, and the centre one seven inches long. The inside toe is armed with a long sharp and strong nail, with which, no doubt, a serious wound might be inflicted. The feathers are of a deep black colour, and similar in shape to those of the emu; at a distance they present the appearance of coarse hairs rather than of feathers.

On the upper part of the breast the bone appears to be flattened, and the skin is bare of feathers, and very thick and horny.

The bird seems to confine itself almost entirely to the more open parts of the scrubs, 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 them."

From these notes and a sketch simultaneously received,

3

The sketch, or a copy, was enclosed in M to W. Sonder, 13 May 1867, who forwarded it with W. Sonder to F. Krauss, 6 August 1867 (in this edition as M67-08-06).

it is obvious that the Casuarius Johnsonii must rank as a separate species. The size of the bird may be the same as that of the Indian Casuarius galeatus; the former, however, has the neck coloured with two shades of blue, and wants the broad squalid-violet vitta, and while in the Indian cassowary the black hairy plumage commences immediately below the oblique violet band, and covers the lower portion of the neck quite along the scarlet posterior caruncle, the Australian bird shows an indigo-blue to descend in a cuneate-deltoid form to the thorax quite as deep as the two cervical anterior appendages. The short lower curved quill is not noticed by any writer on the Casuarius galeatus so far as I am aware, and seems, therefore, not to exist in that species. The caruncular appendages towards the sternum are given as pink in D'Orbigny's Dictionare Universal d'Histoire Naturelle, while Mr. Johnson describes them as bright red in the Australian species.

4

It is not clear whether M was using the 1844 or the 1861 edition of d'Orbigny. The relevant text in d'Orbigny (1861), vol. 3, p. 203 is identical to that in the earlier edition: 'Les caroncules qui lui pendent au bas du cou sont mi-parties de rouge et de bleu'.

Further discrepancies between the two species will unquestionably be pointed out by our learned professor of natural history whenever the solitary specimen, which I intend to present to the Melbourne Zoological Museum, shall have arrived.

5

The specimen was never received. It was retained in the Australian Museum, Sydney, where Gerard Krefft (1867) described it from the specimen. See also A. North (1913). The Australian Faunal Directory treats M as the author of the name ( https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Casuarius_casuarius_johnsonii accessed 20 February 2018)

The failure to place the specimen in the Museum in Melbourne seems to have caused problems for its director, Frederick McCoy, as people contacted him asking about it, see F. McCoy to M, 4 February 1868 (in this edition as 68-02-04a), and F. McCoy to M, 6 February 1868.

Dr. Bennett's cassowary from near the Solomon Group is a widely distinct species, and no other congener appears to be on record.

Melbourne Botanic Gardens, Dec. 15.