ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE CASSOWARIES
(Family Casuariidce)
The Cassowaries are more numerous in forms than the Ostriches, Rheas, and Emeus combined, as Rothschild, in his magnificent monograph of the genus, recognizes eight or nine species and ten or more subspecies, and states that, owing to the uncertainty of localities whence have come many of the living specimens brought to Europe, and the disappearance after death of the most characteristic coloration of the bare skin of the head and neck, our knowledge of the species is doubtless still limited. ]
They are confined in their distribution to the Papuan subregion, i.e. New Guinea with the islands in Geelvink Bay, Salawatti, New Britain, probably the Solomon Islands, the Aru group, northern Queensland, and the island of Ceram in the Moluccas. They are curious, large birds, some of them standing five feet or more in height, and perhaps their most marked external character is the peculiar bony helmet or casque on the forehead, this, and the naked head and neck, being brightly colored; the skin of the neck is also much carunculated and wattled in various places.
The bill is generally shorter than the head, laterally compressed and with the culmen curved downward near the tip, while the wings are quite rudimentary, the only external evidence being some five or six long, black, barbless quills; there are no tail-feathers. The legs and feet are very strong, for they too are very fleet of foot. As already indicated, the two outer toes are provided with obtuse curved claws, while the inner is armed with a long, straight, powerful, pointed claw,”which is a dangerous weapon.”As in Emeus the body is covered with stiff, hair-like feathers in which the after-shaft is as long as the principal shaft.”The old birds are black, the young ones brown, and the nestling, when hatched, is striped longitudinally above."
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