AN EXTINCT EMU 327 



Of birds I have scarcely found any traces except in 

 superficial deposits, and the number of extinct genera that 

 have come under my notice has been exceedingly small. 

 The lyre-birds and the brush-turkeys are two of the oldest 

 forms on the continent, but they are followed closely by 

 the cockatoos and other parrots. 



The oldest bird, however, that has been discovered in 

 Australia, so far as I can learn, is a species of emu, the 

 droniorius^ which was about twice the size of the existing 

 emu, though there seem to have been at least three species 

 of this family, which varied in size. Their remains have 

 been found as early as the late miocene, but there is some 

 evidence that one large species at least survived to 

 historical times. I have found the bones of this bird, in 

 some cases nearly the entire skeleton, in the same deposits 

 in which human remains were tolerably abundant ; and 

 that in Australia is a very late period. There is no trace 

 of man in Australia earlier than his remains in a vegetable 

 mould or detritus of a very recent date. Roughly, I 

 should place six or seven thousand years as the extreme 

 limit of the period he has inhabited the land. 



To show how generally species in the early ages of 

 the earth's existence exceeded in size their descendants, 

 I may record that there was a lizard in miocene times 

 which was fourteen or fifteen feet long and of the girth of 

 a tolerably large bullock. The remains of this huge 

 reptile, which was closely allied to the water-monitor 

 ( Varanus salvator), have been found in the Port Darwin 

 and the Port Denison districts, but little or nothing is as 

 yet known to European scientists concerning it. In fact, 

 there is yet much to be learned by the naturalist con- 

 cerning our great continent ; and I have found so much 

 ignorance, even among native naturalists, of the past 

 condition of this noble country, that I am convinced that 

 a specially organised expedition for the discovery and 

 classification of Australian geological specimens is much 

 needed, and would result in the establishing of many 

 interesting points that every evolutionist must hold of 

 great importance to his peculiar doctrine. 



