AUGUST 15th, 1906. 



Till' ordiiuuy inoiilhly niueliug ol' tho 

 Koyal Society "was held in the !:-ociety'.s 

 room nt the Museum on August 15. His 

 Excellency tho Governor, who was at'com- 

 panieil by Mr. Geo. Browne, I.S.O., Pri- 

 vate Secretary, presided. 



The following new memhers were elect- 

 ed:— Hon. N. K. Ewiug. Mr. J. A. John- 

 son, M.A. (principal of the Training Col- 

 lege), Mr. H. J. Spencer (electrical 

 engineer;, and Dr. F. W. Ncetling, Ph.U., 

 who has for many years been counectecl 

 with the Palajontolugical section of tho 

 Indian Survey JJepai-tment, and has con- 

 tributed numerous articles to various 

 publications on palseontological and other 

 eubjfccts. 



The Tasmauiau Emu. 



Colonel W. V. Legge's paper on the 

 Tasmania Emii (species Dromiaus) was 

 read, in the Colonel's absence, by the 

 Secretary (Mr. Alex. Morton i. "In con- 

 nection with the interesting discovery of 

 emu bones on King Island some little 

 time since," wrote the colonel, "and the 

 recent trip of the Director of the Museum 

 to the site of their exhumation, a few 

 ' remarks about the Tasmanian species 

 may lie opportune. I had the pleasure 

 of inspecting the bones, in company with 

 Mr. Morton, and was struck with the 

 small size of the femur, which would re- 

 present a bird a ' little more than half 

 the size of D. nov?e hollandise, and the 

 impression came to my mind that the 

 boneis might not improbably belong to 

 the smaller insular form, the Black Emu 

 (D. ater), of Kangai'oo Island, S.A. This 

 species existed there in the beginning of 

 the la.st century, and specimens were cap- 

 tiired and sent to Paris by Peron. TTie 

 bird was afterwards exterminated by the 

 settiex-is, much in the same Way that the 

 Emu in Tasmania was — chiefly by being 

 run down and caught by dogs. It is 

 reasonable to suppose that D. ater ex- 

 tended its distribution to King Island, 

 being, in fact, the insular form of the 

 co-ntiuental species.''" i'he paper concluded 

 wath a suggestion that some of the King 

 Island bones should be sent to the Flor- 

 ence Museum for a comparison by the 

 Director with the skeletc^n of D. ater 

 which was there. 



The Cucumber Herring. 



A paper by Mr. C. H. Harrison, assist- 

 ant secretary of the NoTthern Tasmanian 

 Fisheries Board, was read by Mr. R. M. 

 Johnston, I.S.O. It was entitled "Some 

 notes on the propagation of the cucumber 

 herring from the captive iisb." Mr._ 

 Harrison, who has taken a great deal of 

 interest in this branch of science, was 



successful in hatching a large number of 

 eggs of this intei-esting herring, whien 

 was at one time plentiful in our Southsia 

 waters, though for some years they have 

 been extinct. The result of tho experi- 

 ment at the Waverley pands in Launc - 

 ton clearly demonstrates that this fish, 

 like the salmonidie, can he dealt with, 

 and it is to be honed that not only the 

 Northern, but the Southern and other 

 rivers will be stocked. 



Aboriginal Stone Axes. 



A paper on a recent disco'very of som© 

 Tasmanian aboriginal stone axes on Tas- 

 man Island by Mr. J. E. Philp was read 

 by the Secretary (Mr. Alex. Morton). (Jn 

 a recent visit to Tasman Island, Mr. 

 Philp found, near the summit, a largo 

 number of chipped stone implements, 

 clearlv showing that at one period the 

 now extinct aboriginals of Tasmania 

 visited Tasman Island, whether in search 

 of mutton bird or crayfish it is difficult 

 to say; bat they must have made us© 

 of their very rude canoes, known to have 

 been used by them on the East Coast, 

 to go from the mainland to the adjaoent 

 island. It would be interesting to follow 

 this matter up, and see if any 

 shell middens, as found on the 

 mainland, exist on Tasman Island. 

 Professor Edward Tylor, F.R.S.., of 

 London, in a very interesting paper pub- 

 lished in 1893, entitled "On the Tasmani- 

 aus as Eepresentatives of Palseolithio 

 Man," wrote:— "The Tasmanians up to 

 the time of the British colonisation in 

 the present century habitually used stone 

 implements shaped and edged by chip- 

 ping, not ground or polished. Tliese be- 

 long, notM'ithstauding their modern date, 

 to the order of the very ancient palaeo- 

 lithic implements of the Drift and Cave 

 periods, from w^hich the later imple- 

 ments of the neolithic order are distin- 

 guished bv greater form and skill of fin- 

 ish, and especially by the presence of 

 grinding or polishing. The comparison 

 of the Tasmanian stone implements,' 

 wrote Professor Tylor, "with those of 

 the ancient world impresses on us the 

 fact that the rude modern savage was 

 content to use a few forms of implements 

 for all purposes of cutting, chopping.etc, 

 these being flakes as struck off the stcne, 

 and such flakes, or even chance frag- 

 ments, trimmed and brought to a cutting 

 edge by striking off chips along the edge 

 of one surface only,, whether completely 

 or partlv round. Such stones are knowu 

 to the Stone Age of the old world. The 

 Tasmanian, though using types of impl&- 

 ment not unfamiliar to palffloLithic man, 

 is not known to have attained to making 

 any implement approaching the character- 

 istic palaeolithic pick, chipped into sym- 



