162 RECORbS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



In the future, to see tlie Emu in a state of nature, in any 

 great numbers, one must go "out back," as is the ever recur- 

 ring cry. " Out back" which meant, in the early days of 

 settlement, and for several decades after, subsequent upon the 

 first crossing of the Blue Mountains barrier by Blaxland, 

 Lawson,and Wentworth, in 1813, the fertile plains below. "Out 

 back" still later when it signified the Great Western Plains 

 west of the Macquarie River, and foi- ever will be heard this 

 cry, as the country becomes more thickly populated, and as the 

 large pastoral areas are resumed foi' closer settlement, and for 

 the growing of grain. At the present time there are unques- 

 tionably thousands of Emus in Western New South Wales, 

 but inevitably in the future must this noble bird be driven 

 further back, until the present terminus of the western railway 

 system is reached, at Bourke, on the Darling River, five 

 hundred and eight miles west of Sydney. " Out back " will 

 then still be heard, as one journeys towards and across the 

 South Australian bordei', where from Bourke the mode of 

 travelling is replaced by motoi' car and camel " train," and 

 still further "out back," to where obtains the smoke-signal 

 language of the Central Australian Aborigines. When in the 

 compai'atively not far distant future, this unhappy time ai'rives, 

 for the lai'gest and finest bird in Australia, the Emu will be no 

 more. Wliat chance has a flightless bird of perpetuating its 

 kind, with so many enemies to contend with, and how long will 

 it be before someone records the passing away of the last Emu 

 in Australia, as has been recently done with an at one time infi- 

 nitely more numerous species, the Passenger Pigeon (Ectopides 

 )iiiijn(toriiis), of North America? "Wilson, writing about 

 1808, estimated that a flock of Wild Pigeons (Passenger 

 Pigeons) observed by him near Frankfurt, Kentucky, contained 

 at least 2,230,272,000 individuals." Yet the las^t surviving 

 example, a female, which had lived in the aviary of the 

 Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, United States, for twenty-nine 

 years, died on the 1st September, IQll,^ the species became 

 extinct. 



6 The Ibis, 1915, p. 183. 



