106 ^ NOTi: o\ Tin; kinc island i;.\ii . 



"same sound. The Tasnianian Emus share the toils of 

 "incubation between the sexes, but upon the mothei- devolves 

 "the care of brinpring up the young brood, to which the 

 "male parent, for the most part, displays an unnatural and 

 "most bitter antipathy." After resting in the cellar of New- 

 stead House for some 70 years, this Emu's leg has now come 

 to light again, and is upon the table before me as I write. 

 Gunn's statement that the scutes make a depai'ture from 

 those of the mainland Emu's leg is quite correct, when com- 

 parison is made between the dried skin of his specimen and 

 that of a mounted Australian Emu shown in our case. It 

 will be noted, however, that Gunn makes the reservation, "so 

 "far as I can judge from a very imperfect specimen," mean- 

 ing, obviously, as the specimen still shows, that the outer 

 cuticle has peeled off the scutes, and, in this condition, they 

 appear far less developed than obtains with the Australian 

 Emu. That the scutes should vary upon the tarso-meta- 

 tarsus, during the creation of a species, and, indeed, that 

 the bene itself should vary more than the other bones of the 

 leg, is not unexpected, since the tarso-metatarsus is a later 

 evolution than either the femur or tibia, and is therefore 

 more plastic, and accordingly responsive to external condi- 

 tions. Just how much the scutes varied, cannot be accurately 

 stated to-day, any more than it could by an examination of 

 the specimen 70 years ago, so we are restricted to Gunn's 

 .statement in his own terms, which personally I am inclined 

 to accept; and I conclude that the cuticle and its under 

 layers may very well, during life, have manifested differ- 

 ences that added to the several specific characters of size 

 and colour. As this leg is beyond all question that of a 

 Tasmanian bird, it supplies us with the following com- 

 parison: — 



Tibio-tarsus . . . . . . 44() mm. 



Tarso-metatarsus . . . . ;{77 mm. 



The femur is not present, and may never have been in 

 Gunn's possession, but the central and external toes and 

 part of the internal toe, are .still in tht skin — the bones 

 being those of a right leg. 



When the tibio-tarsus from Newstead House is placed 

 upon the measuring plate, side by side with the sub-fossil 

 bone recovered from the Irish Town swamp — the one being 

 a right, and the other a left — the two bones so exactly agree 

 in every respect that, except for locality and age, they 

 might be selected as associates. 



