(PLATE 40.)
_Casoar de la Nouvelle Hollande_ Péron, Relat. Voy. Terr. Austr. I p.
467, pl. XXXVI (1807).
_Dromoius ater_ Vieillot, Gal. des Ois, pl. 226 (not text).
_Dromaeus ater_ Blyth, Ibis 1862, p. 93.
It is most unfortunate that the larger number of authors have neglected to
go carefully into the synonymy of this bird; if they had done so it would
not have been necessary, after 81 years, to reject the very appropriate
name of _ater_, and to rename the Emu of Kangaroo Island. Vieillot, in the
Nouveau Dictionnaire D'Histoire Naturelle X, page 212, distinctly states
that his _Dromaius ater_ was a name given to Latham's _Casuarius
novaehollandiae_, and makes no mention of Péron or of the Isle Decrès.
The figures in Péron's work of the adult male and female are not good, but
those of the young and nestlings appear to me to be very accurate, and the
plate in the Galérie des Oiseaux is quite excellent. The latter and my own
are taken from the type specimen in the Paris Museum, while the plate in
Péron was done by Lessieur from a series of sketches from life made by
himself on Decrès Island and in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes.
The only known specimens of this extinct species are the mounted skin and
skeleton in Paris and the skeleton in the Florence Museum. All these are
what remain of the three living birds brought to Paris by Péron, and no
other authentic specimens exist anywhere. There is in the Museum at
Liverpool a full-grown, though immature Emu of the same size as _Dromaius
peronii_, but owing to its proportionally longer legs and very scanty
plumage it is not absolutely safe to identify it as a second mounted
specimen of _D. peronii_. I will recur to this lower down.
Description of adult male (ex Cat. Birds Brit. Mus.): Similar to _D.
novaehollandiae_, but much smaller, and with feathers of the neck entirely
black; feathers of the body brown fulvous, with the apical half very dark
blackish brown; bill and feet blackish, naked skin of the sides of the neck
blue. Total length about 55 inches, tarsus 11.40, culmen 2.36.
Immature in first plumage entirely sooty black. Nestling whitish with
longitudinal bands of rufous brown. In addition to Decrès or Kangaroo
Island, also Flinders, King Islands, and Tasmania had Emus living on them
{236} at the time of Péron's visit, and I believe, if authentic specimens
from these localities were in existence we should find that each of these
islands had had a distinct species or race of Emus. Taking this for
granted, and also taking into account that it is slightly different from
the type of _D. peronii_, I have come to the conclusion that the Liverpool
specimen is an immature, though full-grown individual from one of these
other islands; but it is not possible from this one rather poor specimen to
separate it from the Kangaroo Island species, especially as there is
absolutely no indication of the origin of this specimen.
Habitat: Island of Decrès or Kangaroo Island.
One stuffed specimen (Type) and one skeleton in Paris, one skeleton in
Florence, and one stuffed specimen in Liverpool (an species diversa?). Also
some leg-bones in Adelaide, Australia.
Dr. H. O. Forbes, who kindly lent me the last-named specimen, was the first
to point out the differences of this bird from _D. novaehollandiae_. It is
certainly totally distinct from birds of similar age of either _D.
novaehollandiae_ or _D. n. irroratus_. {237}