88 NiCHOLLS, Bird Life in the National Park, N.S.W. [^J 



Emu 

 Oct. 



Cockatoos, the Wonga Wonga Pigeon [Leucosarcia picata), and 

 other birds. As the boat neared the bank the bird moved 

 to the edge of the rock, and hesitated for a second or two before 

 crossing to another rock, some 12 feet below. It took the air 

 with outstretched wings, and we were astonished at the noise 

 it made in ahghting. We heard its claws strike the rock, although 

 it was 40 yards distant. The bird, which had been joined by its 

 mate, climbed along a sloping tree-trunk, and progressed from 

 rock to rock till it reached the steep, irregular face of the sandstone 

 cliff, which it rapidly scaled to a height of 150 feet or more, using 

 both wings and feet. The Archaeopteryx must have progressed 

 in a similar manner. 



The Emu of King Island.* 



By L. Brasil. 



(Extract from the Bulletin de la Societe Linneenne de Normandie, 



6e serie, 6e volume, 1913.) 

 Emus were in great numbers in King Island at the time when 

 Baudin's expedition landed there, at the beginning of the last 

 century ; but this state of things did not last long. The frequent 

 visits paid to the island by seal-hunters, and, above all, the 

 importation of dogs trained for the capture of kangaroos and 

 Emus, soon brought about the complete disappearance of the 

 latter. 



For a long time the little we knew about the Emus of King 

 Island was only what Peron says about them in the " Voyage de 

 Decouvertes aux Terres Australes," and the supplementary par- 

 ticulars which Milne-Edwards and Oustalet f gave later on by 

 publishing a manuscript document, which is preserved at the 

 library of the Natural History Museum at Le Havre, and which 

 is included in Peron's papers. Unfortunately, the latter died 

 before having been able to complete the study of the very large 

 quantity of materials gathered by the expedition, and which he 

 had bequeathed to his friend and companion, Lesueur. Till then, 

 therefore, our knowledge was limited to Peron's account. 

 Nothing, and particularly no skin, no remains of the bird, made 

 it possible for us to make our knowledge more complete or exact. 

 And it was so until 1903, at which date Campbell | announced 

 the discovery made at King Island, in ground of recent formation, 

 of remains of an Emu, consisting of a posterior limb and a frag- 

 ment of pelvis: — 



"The remains, in a fair state of preservation, were found on the margin 

 of a lagoon on the east coast. In other parts of King Island, and also on 



* Translated by M. Maurice Carton (Melb. Univ.) and Miss C. M. Van 

 Nooten (Essendon High School). At the editors' request, as literal a 

 translation as possible was made, 



t A. Milne-Edwards and E. Oustalet, " Note sur I'Emeu noir (Dromseus ater, 

 V.) de I'ile Decres (Australie)." Bull, Mus. Hist. Nat., v., pp. 206-214, 

 1899. 



X A. G. Campbell, Emu, iii., p. 113, 1903. 



