compensation for the cost of rearing and supporting it.

The wild cassowary feeds on fruits, tender roots, and occasionally on the young of small animals. The tame ones which have appeared in our Zoological Gardens are fed not only on fruits, but on bread, of which each one receives about four pounds a-day.

These birds run very swiftly, and often outstrip the fleetest horses. They resist dogs by dealing them very severe blows with their feet. The male bird generally leaves his mate to the cares of incubation, which are required only at night; for, during the day, the three grayish eggs, spotted with green, are exposed to the vivifying heat of the sun, being slightly covered with sand in the hole where they were laid. In captivity, their incubation lasts eight-and-twenty days.

There appears to be but little difference in colour between the two sexes; but the young, on first quitting the shell, have a much more elegant livery. A brood of these birds was hatched, some years ago, in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park. Their ground colour was grayish-white, marked with two longitudinal broad black stripes along the back, and two similar ones on either side, each sub-divided by a narrow middle line of white. These stripes were continued along the neck without sub-division, and were broken on the head into irregular spots. Two other broken stripes passed down the fore part of the neck and breast, and terminated in a broad band passing on either side across the thighs. The bill and legs were of a dusky hue, as in the fully-grown bird. The young bird has not the helmet of the adults, and his plumes are of a light red colour, mixed with gray.

THE APTERIX.*

THIS is an exceedingly curious bird. In 1812 Captain Barclay, of the ship "Providence," brought a specimen from New Zealand, and presented it to Dr. Shaw. On the death of that eminent man it

came into possession of the late Earl of Derby, the president of the Zoological Society of London distinguished for his munificent patronage of zoology, and for his beautiful and valuable collection both of living animals and preserved birds. A specimen has lately been added to the gardens of the Zoological Society.

Apterix Australis.

Though the Apterix has no wings, yet there are small members growing out of the part of the body from which the wings of birds arise. The feathers are soft and flexible, and furnished with extremely fine hair, so that the covering of the Apterix has, at a distance, exactly the appearance of coarse fur.

The length from the point of the bill to the end of the tail-less body is about thirty-two inches; but the bill varies greatly in length, and it is supposed that the female has the longer bill. It appears that worms, insects, and probably snails, are the food of this species.

Mr. Gould has become acquainted with several specimens of this bird. He states that its favourite calities are those covered with extensive and dense beds of fern, amongst which it conceals itself, and hen hard pursued by dogs, the usual mode of chasing it, it takes refuge in the crevices of rocks, hollow ees, and the deep holes which it excavates in the ground in the form of a chamber. In these latter tuations it is said to construct its nest of dried ferns and grasses, and there deposits its eggs.

This bird is called "Kiwi" by the natives of New Zealand, who hunt it for the sake of its flesh,

of which they are extremely fond. Until the approach of night it buries itself in the recesses of the forests, and then ventures forth, in couples, in search of food, which they discover in darkness with the greatest ease. The cry of this bird resembles the sound of a whistle, and it is by imitating this that the hunters are able to take it. Sometimes it is chased by dogs, and at others secured by suddenly coming upon it with a lighted torch, when it makes no attempt at flight.

THE MOORUK.*

THE Mooruk is a species of Cassowary. One was procured by Dr. Bennett from the natives of New Britain, an island in the South Pacific Ocean, near to New Guinea, where it is known by that name. Its height was three feet to the top of the back, and five feet when standing erect; its colour was rufous, mixed with black on the back and hinder portions of the body, and raven-black about the neck and breast; the loose, wavy skin on the neck being beautifully coloured with iridescent tints of bluish purple, pink, and an occasional shade of green. It had a horny plate on the top of the head, resembling mother-of-pearl darkened with blacklead; and behind this was a small tuft of black, hair-like feathers, continued, in more or less abundance, over the greater part of the neck. The bird was very tame and familiar, and, when in a good humour, frequently danced about its place of confinement. It was fed on boiled potatoes, and occasionally on meat. The bird appeared to Dr. Bennett to approximate nearer to the emeu than to the cassowary, and to form the link between them.

THE DODO.

THE visitors of the British Muscunt were, some years ago, accustomed to glance at the representation of a bird, the gift of Mr. George Edwards, which he thus describes :-"The original picture from which this print of the Dodo is engraved, was drawn in Holland, from the living bird, brought from St. Maurice's Island, in the East Indies, by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. This picture was the property of the late Sir Hans Sloane to the time of his death; and afterwards becoming my property, I deposited it in the British Museum, as a great curiosity. The above history of the picture I had from Sir Hans Sloane, and the late Dr. Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society."

Were this the only evidence that could be adduced, it would be more easy to suppose that the artist had invented the picture than that a species of birds should have become extinct in so short a space of time. But there are three other representations of the dodo in very early printed books, and they are evidently not copied from one another, though they all agree in representing the animal with a sort of hood on the head, the eye placed in a bare skin extending to the beak, the curved and swelling neck, the short heavy body, the small wings, the stumpy legs and diverted claws, and the tuft of rump feathers.

Hubert thus describes the bird in his "Travels:"—"The dodo comes first to our description, here, and in Dygarrois (and nowhere else, that ever I could see or hear of, is generated the dodo; a Portuguese name it is, and has reference to her simpleness); a bird which, for shape and rareness, might be called a phoenix (wer't in Arabia); her body is round and extreame fat, her slow pace begets that corpulencie; few of them weigh less than fifty pound: better to the eye than the stomak: greasy appetites might, perhaps, commend them, but to the indifferently curious nourishment but proves offensive. Let's take her picture: her visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of Nature's injurie in framing so great and massive a body to be directed by such small and complementall wings, as are unable to poise her from the ground, serving only to prove her a bird, which otherwise might be doubted of; her head is variously drest, the one halfe hooded with downy blackish feathers, the other perfectly naked, of a whitish hue, as if a transparent lawne had covered it; her bill is very hooked, and bends downwards; the thrill, or breathing place, is in the midst of it, from which part to the end the colour is a light green, mixt with a pale yellow; her eyes be round and small, and bright as diamonds; her cloathing is of finest downe, such as you see in goslins; her trayne is, like a China beard, of three or four short feathers; her legs thick, and black, and strong; her tallons, or pouncers, sharp; her stomak fiery hot, so as stones and iron are easily digested in it, and, in that shape, not a Casuarius Bennetti.

little resembling the Africk ostriches; but so much, as for their more certain difference, I dare to give thee (with two others) her representation."

There are several details in this description, such as the digestive powers of the stomach, which are doubtless inaccurate; but the more important particulars entirely accord with other evidence.

The bird in question, from every account which we have of its economy, and from the appearance of its head and foot, is decidedly gallinaceous; and from the insufficiency of its wings for the purposes of flight, it may with equal certainty be pronounced to be of the struthious structure, and referable to the present family. But the foot has a strong hind toe, and, with the exception of its being more robust-in which character it still adheres to the Struthionide-it corresponds exactly with the foot of

the Linnæan genus Crax, that commences the succeeding family. The bird thus becomes osculant, and forms a strong point of junction between these two conterminous groups; which, though evidently approaching each other in general points of similitude, would not exhibit that intimate bond of connection which we have seen to prevail almost uniformly throughout the neighbouring sub-divisions of Nature, were it not for the intervention of this important genus.

Thus the existence of the dodo is placed beyond all doubt. It appears that there is a general impression among the people of the Mauritius, that this bird did exist at Rodriguez, as well as in the Mauritius itself; but the oldest inhabitants never saw it, nor has a single specimen been preserved by them.

With this bird we conclude our account of the GALLINE, often called the RASORES, or RASORIAL

BIRDS.