230 Lf. SOUEF, Extinct Tasmania)! Emu. [2nd April 



known. Mr. M'Gowan, speaking from memory, considers it 

 was quite as large as the mainland species. This bird was 

 supposed to be the last of the Tasmanian Emus, but as apparently 

 nothing authentic is known as to where it really came from, 

 it may very probably have been imported from Australia, as 

 there are records of Emus having been sent across to' Tasmania 

 over fifty years ago from Victoria. 



Two eggs are known to be in existence. Both are considerably 

 smaller than those of the mainland variety, one measuring 

 4.85 x 3.40 inches, and the other 4.80 x 3.50 inches, whereas 

 the size of a typical egg of the mainland Emu is 5.56 x 3.63 

 inches, which would seem to point to the insular bird itself 

 being also smaller, but two eggs are hardly sufficient to prove 

 the point. 



Mr. H. H. Scott, the Curator of the Victoria Museum, Laun- 

 ceston, kindly forwarded me a bone he had found in a limestone 

 quarry. It is the femur of an Emu, but is too damaged to be of 

 any value, except that it is smaller than those from the main- 

 land. 



Emus were originally plentiful in Tasmania, as they are often 

 mentioned by early settlers. For instance, the late Rev. R. 

 Knockwood mentions an Emu and six young ones in his diary 

 in 1803, and Mr. T. Stephens, of Adelaide-street, Hobart, has 

 kindly sent me the following notes regarding them. Mr. John 

 Meredith, of Cambria, East Coast, says : — " I remember perfectly 

 Emus being caught in this neighbourhood prior to 1830, and 

 for a few years subsequently also between this place and Avoca. 

 I saw a pair at Circular Head on 'Black Thursday' (185 1). 

 They were full grown, and had with them half a dozen young 

 ones. The old birds had been caught when young near Circular 

 Head and reared and tamed." 



Mr. Ransom, of Killymoon, in the Fingal district, remembers 

 hunting Emus with kangaroo dogs about 1840, when he was 

 a young man of 18. He remembers Captain Hepburn, of Roy's 

 Hill, finding an Emu's nest with eight or nine eggs. A little 

 later these were hatched under a Turkey hen. From these were 

 bred others, and a pair of them was given to the late Baron 

 von Steiglitz, of Killymoon, one of which survived until 1873, 

 when it was drowned in trying to cross a flooded river. With 

 its death, the Tasmanian Emu, Mr. Ransom believes, became 

 extinct. 



An old resident of Avoca, who knew Captain Hepburn, used 

 to say that the Tasmanian Emu was much taller than the 

 Australian, but the general opinion of old colonists is that the 

 two species were identical. 



In the " thirties " they were habitually hunted and killed for 

 food on the east coast and elsewhere. Gould, writing about 

 1846, says that the Emus were then almost extirpated from 

 Tasmania. He clearly regarded them as of the same species 

 as those of Australia. Mr. Stephens also says that in the early 



