EMBLICA EMEU. 



rest yellow. The legs, which stand an inch high, 

 are black. The neck and all the under part of the 

 body are white, and the head is white spotted with 

 brown. The back and rump are black, with pale 

 margins to the feathers. The quills are white for 

 half their length from their base, and black in the one 

 web for the rest of their length. The tail is forked 

 with three of the lateral feathers on each side white, 

 with a black spot on the tip, and the next four 

 black with a yellow border. The female is smaller 

 and browner in the colour. The male, in the breed- 

 ing season gets considerably blacker than is stated 

 in the above description ; and, indeed, there are 

 few birds of whose colours it is more difficult to 

 give an account that will apply to all the individuals, 

 or even to one individual at all seasons. 



THE LARK-HELED BUNTING (E. calcarata). 

 This species is named from the great length of the 

 claws on the hind toes, which are nearly as much 

 produced in proportion as those on the lark. It is 

 about the same size as the former, or perhaps a very 

 little larger ; and it is an inhabitant of the same 

 countries, but of places more inland and mountain- 

 ous, so that it is less of an emigrant. On the con- 

 tinent it goes occasionally more southward during 

 very severe weather, and we believe it has been 

 observed in Britain, but only as an occasionally rare 

 straggler. Its habits are very little known. The 

 general colour on the upper part is fawn spotted 

 with black ; and the throat and upper part of the 

 breast are black in the male during the breeding 

 season ; but in winter the black breaks into streaks, 

 something similar to those in the female, but darker 

 and better defined. 



Very many birds besides those which we have 

 enumerated, have been described by various authors 

 as buntings, and of these not a few are more allied 

 to the linnets. They are in general inhabitants of 

 the warmer parts of the world, and too little is known 

 of their habits in a state of nature for enabling us to 

 class them with anything like accuracy. 



EMBLICA (Gaertner). A genus of shrubs, natives 

 of the East Indies. Linnsean class and order Monoecia 

 Monadelphia, and natural order Euphorbiacece. Gene- 

 ric character : flowers monoecious ; calyx six-cleft ; 

 stamen, filaments single, filiform, long, trifid at top ; 

 anthers attached by the back and with the filaments 

 forming a point ; styles three, united at the base, split 

 at the apex into several recurved divisions ; capsule 

 drupaceous, three berried, each two-seeded. This is 

 the Phyllanlhus emblica of Linnaeus, and the Nymph- 

 anthus of Lonrino. 



EMBOTHRIUM (Forster). An ornamental shrub 

 found in New Holland, belonging to the natural order 

 ProteacecE. 



EMERALD. This precious stone has long held 

 a high place for its colour and brilliancy, and there are 

 Few mineralogical cabinets that are without speci- 

 mens from Peru and Brazil. The emerald and beryl 

 have a strong resemblance to each other : thus both 

 are green, their crystallisations differ but little, and in 

 point of fracture, hardness, and weight, they are nearly 

 the same. Notwithstanding these agreements, they are 

 readily distinguished from each other by the follow- 

 ing characters. The emerald occurs only of a green 

 colour, but beryl, besides green, is also yellow and 

 blue ; the crystals of beryl are long, those of the 

 emerald are short ; the lateral planes of the beryl 

 are streaked, those of the emerald are almost always 



421 



smooth ; the terminal planes of beryl are smooth, 

 those of the emerald are rough ; and beryl is rather 

 softer than the emerald. 



Many of the emeralds described by the ancients 

 appear to have been varieties of green fluor spar. 

 Even in more modern times, green fluor spar has 

 been preserved for emerald. Mr. Coxe examined the 

 celebrated emerald table in the abbey of Reichenau, 

 near Constance, which he found to" be a very fine 

 green-coloured fluor spar. The celebrated sacro 

 cattino di emeraldo orientate, preserved at Genoa, is in 

 reality but a mass of cellular glass. Many of the fine 

 Ethiopian emeralds, which were bequeathed to monas- 

 teries, appear to have been sold by the monks, and 

 coloured glass substituted in their place. 



This mineral was named smaragdus by the 

 ancients. Pliny distinguished twelve species of the 

 smaragdus ; but under this title he includes, besides 

 the true emerald, also green jasper, malachite, fluor 

 spar, serpentine, and some varieties of gypsum. 

 Theophrastus also mentions the true emerald, which, 

 he says occurs in small quantity, and very rarely : 

 he enumerates along with it another mineral of a 

 green colour, which he informs us is found in masses 

 ten feet long, and is probably a variety of serpentine. 

 The emerald with which the hall of Ahasuerus was 

 paved ; the pillars of emerald in the temple of Her- 

 cules, at Tyre, mentioned by Herodotus ; and the 

 large emeralds described by Pliny as having been cut 

 into columns and statues, cannot be referred to the 

 true emerald. Indeed the confusion that prevails in, 

 the descriptions of this mineral in ancient authors, 

 has led some mineralogists to believe that the true 

 emerald was not known till after the conquest of 

 Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards. The primitive 

 form of the rhomboidal emerald is an equi-angular six- 

 sided figure, and the prismatic emerald has a strong 

 double refractive power. 



EMEU. A very singular bird of New Holland, 

 classed by Cuvier in his order Echassicrs, or stilt 

 birds, and in the division Brevipennes, or those which 

 have no feathers fit for flight, but perform all their pro- 

 gressive motions on foot upon the ground. If Brevi- 

 pennes is to be retained as the name of the division, 

 and as it is founded upon the most remarkable exter- 

 nal character of the animals, there can be no other 

 objection to it, than that it would require to be divided 

 into two families, Struthionides, or fast running birds, 

 and another to include the apteryx, and the dodo, if 

 they ever should be found in the live state. 



There are four distinct races of the swift running 

 birds, the ostrich of Africa, the rhea of South Ame- 

 rica, the cassowary of South Eastern Asia, and the 

 emeu of New Holland, the bird more immediately 

 under consideration. Each of these has characters 

 sufficiently distinct for entitling it to rank as a sepa- 

 rate genu?, though no generic name that is quite 

 unobjectionable has yet been given to the erneu. 



The emeu is a very large bird, bearing some resem- 

 blance to the cassowary of Asia, and has been in con- 

 sequence often called by the same generic name. ^ It 

 wants, however, the horny plate, or helmet, which 

 characterises the other, and there are besides many 

 differences between them. Perhaps the other bird of 

 the family which it resembles the most is the African 

 ostrich, but still there are many points of dissimilarity. 

 Its body is more clumsy than that of the ostrich, its 

 neck is rather shorter, its legs are also shorter, and, 

 perhaps, stouter, and its feet have three toes,all directed 



