File:Reptiles and birds - a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting (1883) (14565730298).jpg

Identifier: reptilesbirds00figu (find matches)
Title: Reptiles and birds : a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894 Gillmore, Parker
Subjects: Reptiles Birds
Publisher: London : Cassell & Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Fig. 144.—The Rhea, —their shape is not so elegant, and their wings are even less adaptedfor liight; for so short are they, that they are pefectly useless, even toassist in running. Their long blackish feathers are almost devoid ofside fringes, which gives tlieir plumage a resemblance to coarse hair;tb^ir feet are provided with three toes, Thi$ 3ird was called the THE CASSOWARY. 36: Emu by early Portuguese navigators. It is the Struthio casuarius ofLinnaeus, and the Casuarius galcafus of Vieillot. The Cassowary has a kind of hehnet on its head, produced by anenlargement of the bone of the skull, and covered with a horny sub-stance. It is a massively-made bird, in size between the Ostrich andthe Rhea, and is a native of the Mnla^cas. It is a stupid, quarrel-
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Fig. 145.—Cassowary. some, and gluttonous creature, feeding on plants, fruits, and some-times small animals. Possessed of considerable strength, and beingwild and fierce in nature, its anger cannot be provoked withoutdanger; for, although its wings are short, each is furnished with fivepointed spines, the middle one of which is sometimes a foot long,and which are employed with adroitness as weapons of defence.Its habitual cry consists of a low grumbling, which, when the bird 364 REPTILES AND BIRDS. is angry, Is changed into a sonorous humming noise, not unhkethe sound of carriage-wheels or of distant thunder. The first birdof this species which was seen in Europe was brought from Javaby the Dutch in 1597. The menagerie of the Museum of Natural History at Paris wasin possession of a Cassowary which devoured everything that wasgiven it—bread, fruit, vegetables, &c., and drank seven or eightpints of water daily. In the London and the Paris ZoologicalGardens there are generally se

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