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
Habits of Cassowaries
The following account of their habits is from Rothschild: “All Cassowaries are inhabitants of forests, while the rest of the large living Palaognatha are denizens of steppes and deserts. Their food seems to consist of all sorts of vegetable matter and fruits; but they also pick up insects and any creeping thing that comes in their way. In captivity, at least, they kill and devour chicks and small birds when they come across them. They also, like Ostriches, Rheas, and others, swallow quantities of stones and gravel to assist digestion. They are entirely diurnal, sleeping from sunset till morning.
"The voice of the Cassowaries is a curious sort of snorting, grunting, and bellowing, usually not very loud, and differing according to the species.
"Their temper is generally sullen and treacherous, and they are extremely pugnacious, even the different sexes often fighting at other seasons than the breeding season."
The nest is placed on the ground, often in a pile of leaves, and, unlike many of their relatives, only one female lays in a nest. The eggs vary from five to eight in number, and have a strong, coarsely granulated surface.”When fresh they are evidently all of a light green color, but when exposed to the light they become first more bluish, then grayish, and finally almost cream-colored."
In size they are between five and six inches long and about three and one-half inches broad. Wallace, deriving his information from native sources, says of the Ceram species that both male and female take turns in sitting on the eggs, but from observations made on birds in captivity it appears that the duties of incubation fall entirely on the male, who also assumes charge of the young until they are able to shift for themselves.
The Cassowaries, according to Rothschild, are easily separable into three groups, based on both external and anatomical characters. Externally the groups may be distinguished as follows:
1. The casque compressed laterally; the fore neck with two wattles. This embraces two species, Casuarius bicarun-culatus and C. casuarius, with seven subspecies.
2. The casque depressed in front; fore neck with a single wattle. Of the one-wattled Cassowaries there are two species (C. philipi and C. uniappendiculatus) and four subspecies.
3. The casque as in the last but the fore neck without a wattle. These forms, called the Mooruks, include four species, C. papuanus, C. picticollis, C. bennetti, and C. lorice, each, except the last, with two subspecies.
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