Once there was a cassowary

When we returned from the vet with our dogs yesterday, I told my wife about the vet saying that the animal they had killed sounded, from my description, like a cassowary, whereas I think he meant a capybara.


My wife then cited a half-remembered rhyme from her childhood, that went something like "Once there was a cassowary on the plane to Timbuktu". I remembered something similar, so I thought I would look it up on the web and try to find the original, an d see who wrote it. It sounded like Edward Lear.

One version is:

Once there was a cassowary
on the plains of Timbuktu
killed and ate a missionary
cassock, bands and hymn book too.

My web search produced several other versions too, and the attributions included Tennyson, Thackeray, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and several others, so I ended up being none the wiser.

Does anyone know its real origins, or was it the ubiquitous Anon?