360 PROPOSED EMEU PARKS. [CHAP. ix. 



the dirge over the last of the Emeus. However, before 

 so deplorable a consummation does actually take place, 

 we ardently hope that some Australian aristocrat will 

 arise no matter whether from the proceeds of the 

 Burra Burra copper-mines, or from the Murrumbidgee 

 golden fleeces, if the fortune be but honestly come by 

 who will imitate the magnificent deer-parks of the 

 great Scotch proprietors, and by appropriating a few 

 thousand acres of desert as Emeu grounds for his own 

 private shooting, and by appointing two or three "Black- 

 fellow" families to reside therein and act as keepers, 

 will succeed in preserving live specimens of both the 

 man and the bird, for the study of future Ethnologists 

 and Ornithologists. 



But the fate of both can hardly be averted. Emeus 

 and native Australians will have to give way to white 

 men. "It was really an animating scene," writes the 

 Bishop of Adelaide, Oct. 1849, "to see so large an 

 assemblage of the upper classes gathered together, to 

 witness the laying of the first stone of a new school 

 room, on a spot ivhere, twelve years ago, Kangaroos fed 

 undisturbed." We wish we could also record the inclo- 

 sure of the South Australian Zoological Gardens as well 

 as the building of school-rooms and chapels ; but that 

 will perhaps follow soon, and Old England will then 

 be happy to supply them with spare specimens of New 

 Holland rarities. 



The case, which is a general one, and not limited to 

 this solitary species, is really worth serious consider- 

 ation. We cannot re-create any animal or plant that 

 we may have at last, however thoughtlessly and without 

 malice prepense, pushed out of the list of living organ- 

 isms ; and at no period of the world's history has the 



