The young bower birds are bright green, but when full grown the males are of a deep, shining blue-black closely resembling satin. They have blue bills, yellow at the tip, and their legs and feet are yellowish white. The females are green and brown, with bills of a dark horn colour. The birds are found all along the east coast of Australia and in many parts of the interior.
You may know the little poem by the small boy who was indignant at having his pennies put in the Sunday-school box. One verse reads:
I wish I were a cassowary
In the wilds of Timbuctoo.
Wouldn’t I eat a missionary,
Skin and bones and hymn book, too!
Australia is the land of the cassowary. In part of the country there are thousands of these great birds, which resemble the ostrich and the emu. The ostriches and the emus live on the open plains. The cassowaries are found in the forests and brushwoods. They are wary birds and seldom come out of the jungles. I have seen a number of them during my stay in Australia. The bird is about four and a half feet high, with black feathers, brown at the base. It has eyes like an eagle, and a long, thin neck, with a naked head, and flat but powerful bill. The cassowary’s legs are very strong and look more like clubs than bird legs. They end in three large claws like those of an emu.
Sydney is not only the fastest-growing city of Australia but also the commercial metropolis of the South Seas. About the size of St. Louis, it handles the bulk of the trade of New South Wales.
