410 DROM.EIl)^. 



Mr. Hatton, Stock Inspector at Bourke, says: — " In the old days, when the blacks were 

 numerous, Emus were frequently caught at the water-holes or feeding grounds in nets made by 

 the Aborigines from the fibre of the Marsh Mallow stalk. These nets were very strong, the 

 string being about the thickness of an ordinary clothes line ; they had a lar^e mesh, and were 

 about four feet wide, being staked to the ground. The Emus were attracted to the net by the 

 drumming on a hollow log or drum ; this produced a noise like the drumming note of the bird, 

 or the Aborigines would whistle like an Emu chicken ; the inquisitive bird, attracted by these 

 strange sounds, would walk into the wings of the trap, where they were surrounded and rushed 

 into the net trap, where other natives were wailing with spears, boomerangs or nullah-nullahs 

 to despatch them." 



One of the earliest descriptions of the nest and eggs of the Emu is given by Captain Watkin 

 Tench in his account of the " Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales," published in 

 1793, from a nest and twelve eggs found by a soldier in the nei.Ljhbourhood of Sydney. 



The eggs are usually seven to twelve, occasionally ranging up as high as sixteen in number 

 for a sitting, but Mr. S. Robinson informed me he had once found twenty-three in a nest. 

 Typically they are an ellipse in form, from which they seldom vary, although they do in size, 

 but little in colour when newly laid, the shell being thick and granulated all over, and more or 

 less lustrous. They are of two shades of green, the sunken portion being a beautiful pale <;reen 

 and the outer granulated surface dark green. After the eggs have been deposited for some time, 

 and are nearly hatched, they are very much darker, in some specimens nearly black. I'^KSS ^-fe 

 occasionally found of a uniform beautiful bluish-green, and entirely free from the darker granu- 

 lations. Specimens are often found with one end almost white by the constant turning of them 

 by the bird, with its bill, chopping off the outer surface of the shell. A set of fourteen taken at 

 iJuckiinguy Station in May, 1SQ3, measures as follows: — Length (A) 5-28 x 3-47 inches; (B) 

 5-27 X 3-48incnes; (C) 5-27 x 3-55 inches ; (0)5-15 x 3-51 inches; (E) 5-26 x 3-58 inches; 

 (F) 5-16 X 3-52 inches; (0)5-2 x 3-5 inches ; (1-1)5-07 x 3-42 inches; (1)5-05 x 3-6 inches; 

 (J)5'2i X 3'57 inches; (K) 5-36 x 3-57 inches; (L) 4-97 x 3-58 inches; (M) 5-27 x 3-55 

 inches. The exact weight of an average-sized egg, when fresh, is twenty-two and a half ounces, 

 and the weight of shell when the contents are removed three ounces. Lentjth 5-65 x 5-67 

 inches. 



A deputation waited upon the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, on the 12th 

 January, 1889, asicing that the Imiiu might be removed from the list of protected birds, owing 

 to the damage done by their disturbing breeding ewes. " Some interesting figures were given 

 regarding the destruction of the Emu in the Cobar District. The bird was removed from the 

 schedule during 1894, and in the latter part of that year the Cobar Board paid for the destruction 

 of 513. In 1895 4158 were destroyed, and during the early part of 1S96, in which year the bird 

 was again protected, 855 were destroyed." 



As pointed out by me in the " Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales,"! 

 Mrs. M. Walker, of Newtown, Sydney, had in her possession a pair of Emus, and an egg was 

 placed, by way of experiment, under a common barn-door fowl on the;i5th July, i88g. The hen 

 sat very well for two weeks, when she became restless, and another one was immediately put in 

 her place, the egg being regularly turned every morning, as it was too cumbersome for the fowl. 

 On the 2nd September the young bird emerged from the shell, strong and healthy, and was 

 thriving very well until turned out on a grass plot for a run seventeen days after, when it was 

 attacked by one of the Emus and never recovered. The exact period of incubation in this 

 instance was seven weeks. 



" Sydney Morning Herald, 13th January, i8gg. 



t Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol. IV. (2nd series), p. 1029 (iSqg). 



