146 KING GEORGE'S SOUND 



rest the emus are constantly preening and arranging their 

 feathers, and perhaps destroying the vermin which are apt 

 to invest them. In the act of feeding they are much 

 given to standing on one leg, with the other held loosely, 

 the toes bent backward, ready to take the next step 

 forward. 



The calls and cries of the emu are not numerous, or 

 often used. Generally it is a silent bird. When irritated 

 or alarmed it utters a shrill sound — a kind of hiss or low- 

 pitched scream. It has also a sharp, single-note cry of 

 surprise or warning, at sound of which, uttered by the 

 cock-bird, the flock takes to instant flight. The usual 

 note of the bird, used on occasions of which I can only 

 specify a few with certainty, is termed a "booming" by 

 the colonists. It is a deep hollow sound which nearly all 

 hearers describe in different terms, but which seems to 

 me to be well imitated by drumming on an empty cask 

 with muffled sticks. This peculiar sound is uttered when 

 the cock is coaxing the hen, when the latter is teaching 

 her chicks to feed, and by both birds on most ordinary 

 occasions, and especially when there is going to be a 

 change of weather. Incessant booming of the emus is a 

 sure sign of impending rain, and generally of a storm- 

 burst. The loud hoarse cries — almost a bellowing — uttered 

 by the hen emu during the pairing season is a distinct 

 sound from the usual boom, and seems to be produced by 

 her by means of a peculiar purse-like enlargement of the 

 wind-pipe — an apparatus with which the male bird is not 

 furnished. The hen emu is much larger than the cock — 

 a peculiarity common enough among the Falconidae, but 

 unique, I think, in the Struthionidae. 



Down to the middle of last century the emu was found 

 from shore to shore of the Australian continent. Very 

 few are now left in the old colonies. Though so much 

 scattered in distribution, the bird was not as numerous 

 in individual numbers as many naturalists seem to think 

 it was. They never assembled in large flocks, three or 

 four family parties might be seen in a day's ride, the total 

 of birds not amounting to sixty. I feel sure that the 



