Cassell's book of birds; vol. 3

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

"The instant the Mooruk saw an egg laid by a hen, he darted upon it, and, breaking the shell, devoured it as if he had been accustomed to eggs all his life. A servant was unpacking a cask; as soon as the birds heard the noise they both ran down to it, and remained there whilst it was unpacked, squatting down on each side most intently watching the process, and occasionally pecking at the straw and contents. When the carpenter was in the yard making some alterations in their cage, previous to their voyage to England, it was very amusing to see them squat down upon their tarsi like dogs, watching the man with the greatest apparent interest in all his actions, enjoying the hammering noise, and occasionally picking up a nail, which was not in this instance swallowed, but again dropped. One of them, however, bolted the oilstone, which so alarmed the man lest the bird had committed suicide, that he hurried to me and informed me of the circumstance, when, to his surprise, I told him if he did not take care they would also swallow his hammer, nails, and chisels. The birds kept close to the man until he left for dinner, resuming their position near him as soon as he returned to work, and not leaving him till he had finished. One morning the male Mooruk was missing, and was found in the bedroom upstairs drinking out of the water-jug. The same bird swallowed a bung-cork which measured one inch and a half in diameter—indeed, both seemed to swallow anything, from butter and eggs to iron bolts, nails, and stones. The servant was starching some muslin cuffs, and having completed one and hung it up to dry, she was about to finish the other, when hearing the bell ring, she squeezed up the cuff, threw it into the starch, and attended to the summons. On her return the cuff was gone, and she could not imagine who had taken it during her brief absence, when she discovered that the Mooruk was the thief, its beak and head being covered with starch. Notwithstanding this propensity to swallow every variety of object, the digestive power of these birds is by no means strong, even such food as unboiled grain or raw potato being rejected whole from the stomach."

Dr. Bennett's male Mooruk measured three feet two inches to the top of the head, and the female three feet. An egg presented by that gentleman to Mr. Gould was five inches and a half long by three and a half broad, the shell a pale buff, covered with pale green corrugations. Another egg, laid in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, was pale grass-green, much smoother, and more finely granulated than that of the Common Cassowary; it measured six inches by nearly four, and weighed twenty-two ounces and a half. The pair of Mooruks whose habits are above described bred in the London Zoological Gardens. According to Dr. Sclater, the incubation lasted seven weeks, the male alone brooding. A single young one was hatched, which was unfortunately destroyed the same day by rats. In 1866 the parents were more successful, and the scientific were delighted with the sight of a young Mooruk hatched in captivity. This pretty and interesting little creature was covered with light, yellowish brown down, and striped with dark brown on its body and legs. The first day of its quitting the shell it could scarcely walk, but on the second used its legs readily, and uttered a cry somewhat resembling that of a chicken. The father, who alone had brooded, at once undertook entire charge of his little treasure, leading it about with the utmost care, guiding it to pick up the food thrown down for it, and at night allowing it to nestle beneath his plumage.

THE AUSTRALIAN CASSOWARY.

The AUSTRALIAN CASSOWARY (Casuarius Australis). This bird stands about five feet high; the head is without feathers, but covered with a blue skin. Like the Emu, it is almost wingless, its wings being mere rudiments. The body is thickly enveloped in dark brown wiry feathers; on the head is a large prominence, or helmet, of bright red colour, and to the neck are attached, like so many bells, six or eight round fleshy balls, of bright blue and scarlet, which give the bird a very beautiful appearance.

This Cassowary has never been brought to Europe, only one specimen having been until recently obtained, which unluckily was lost shortly after its capture. A communication from P. A. Eagle, Esq., with which we have been kindly favoured, will best explain the importance attached by scientific men to the discovery of this Australian species.

"Compared with Asia," says Mr. Eagle, "Australia presents the greatest contrast in its natural productions to be found between any two zoological regions of the earth; and yet the line which separates these two great provinces actually passes between two of the islands forming part of the great volcanic chain running from Sumatra to Timor, namely, the island of Bali on the west, and Lombock on the east, separated from each other by no more than fifteen miles; so that within a two hours' sail, without losing sight of land, you pass from Bali, full of Fruit Thrushes, Woodpeckers, and the general ornithology of Asia, to Lombock, where the Cockatoos, Honey-eaters, Brush Turkeys, and other members of the Australian fauna, appear suddenly in full force. The forests of Australia are destroyed by myriads of timber-boring larvæ of various insects; but on the whole area there is not to be found a single Woodpecker, or any bird to do its office; yet, in the same latitudes, in any other part of the world, Woodpeckers occur in special kinds for each great district in abundance, wherever forest trees grow, their function being to pick out those timber-eating larvæ from the wood. The entire absence of the whole family of True Pheasants and Vultures, found in numbers in any other great region of the earth, is also a striking negative character of the ornithology of Australia; whilst its innumerable Honey-eaters, Cockatoos, and Brush-tongued Lories, found in no other region, give to it an equally marked positive character.

"The very deep sea surrounding Ceram, and other islands which constitute the appendages, as it were, of Asia on one side and Australia on the other, suggests a curious problem to the naturalist as to how they got their inhabitants. Great interest, therefore, attaches to the recent discovery of a Cassowary in Australia, as yet only imperfectly known, and so nearly related to the Cassowary of Ceram that doubts have been expressed as to their distinctness. They are both incapable of flight, the wings being represented by five or six bare, cylindrical, pointed quills, like those of a porcupine, and, consequently, the bird could not fly nor pass from one island to another. The Casuarius Australis was first indicated by Mr. Wall, the naturalist to Kennedy's expedition, who shot a specimen in a gully at Cape York, and a notice of it appeared in 1854 in a Sydney paper; but, as the specimen was lost, much doubt existed as to the species. A bunch of feathers taken from a native hut on the Upper Burdekin, and sent to Dr. Sclater in 1866, again drew attention to the probability of a species of Cassowary inhabiting Australia, but still there was no evidence of the species. In June, 1868, a specimen reached the Zoological Society of London; and Dr. Sclater states that although he had not compared it with the Cassowary of Ceram, it seemed to differ—first, in the form of the crest; secondly, in having thicker tarsi, and the long straight claw of the inner toe more developed; thirdly, by the cobalt-blue colour of the naked skin of the neck and throat. Very recently, however, a young specimen, about two feet long, has been presented to the National Museum of Melbourne, which establishes the fact that it is truly distinct as a species from the so-called Indian Cassowary, and "apparently peculiar to Australia, or at any rate affords no support to the theory of the former union of Australia with the northern islands."

THE KIVI-KIVI (Apteryx Australis).