go Brasil, The Emu of King Island. [isf "oct. 



is another name for Kangaroo Island, and that at the beginning 

 of the iQth century naturahsts still included the Emu in the 

 Cassowary genus. 



Now let us examine Mathews's hypothesis. Here is the exact 

 text of his argumentation : — 



" On the left of the picture (la planche XXXVI., du Voyage de Ddcouveries 

 mix Terres Australes) is figured a white-breasted Emu, and on the right are 

 two figures of a black-breasted bird, one large, the other small. It would 

 appear that P^ron considered these were all of the same species, for, in his 

 account of the Cassowaries of King Island, he refers to this plate, as 

 though the birds from King Island were identical with those from Kangaroo 

 Island. We know, from recent research, that they were not, D. parvulus 

 (synonym of D. perotii) from Kangaroo Island being distinct from D. 

 mz'fior from King Island. . . . Nothing has been said of the white- 

 breasted Emu figured by Lesueur in Peron's Voyage, and it would seem 

 that the French naturalists did not distinguish between the white-breasted 

 and black-breasted birds, but even considered them to be identical with the 

 common Emu of the Australian continent {D. 7iovce-hollandia). Anyone 

 examining the figures in Plate XXXVI. of Peron's work can see that the 

 P^mu depicted on the left of this plate can hardly be the same as the black- 

 breasted bird figured on the right. 



"* * # * * * -jf * * 



" .... As the black-breasted bird in the Paris Museum is certainly 

 from Kangaroo Island, and it is hardly possible that two species were found 

 there, I think the white-breasted bird must have been the representative 

 Dwarf Emu of King Island. 



"■!<• * -X- ■»• * * * * * 



"In the plate (Plate IV., Mathews's 'Birds of Australia'), which is a 

 reproduction of the illustration in Peron's work, the left-hand figure 

 represents, in my opinion, the Dwarf Emu of King Island " (pp. 24-26). 



Therefore, according to Mathews, Plate XXXVI. of the 

 " Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes " shows, on the 

 right of the illustration, the Emu of King Island, and, at the 

 moment when his first volume of " The Birds of AustraUa " was 

 being published, he looked upon this specimen as a representation 

 of the bird whose sub-fossil bones had been gathered at King 

 Island a few years before — that is to say, of D. minor, Spencer ; 

 and, in fact, it is mentioned and drawn under this name in the 

 book. But later on, being less sure of the identity of the two 

 birds, and undoubtedly admitting then that two kinds of Emu 

 might possibly exist in the island, Mathews * calls D. spenceri 

 the same specimen on the right of the plate by Lesueur — that is 

 to say, the Emu which he designates as " White-breasted." 

 Finally, while revising the genus Dromaius, Dubois f gives an 

 analytical key, which he holds, he says, from Mathews himself, 

 and in which D. spenceri is not included, D. minor, on the contrary, 

 being mentioned and characterized by the whitish colour of the 

 feathers in front of the neck. Further on, whilst enumerating the 



*G. M. Mathews, "A Reference-list to the Birds of Australia," Novit* 

 Zool., xviii., p. 176, 1912 (note, infra-paginale). 



t A. Dubois, " Coup d'oeil sur les Oiseaux Ratites," Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 

 xxxvii., p. 309, 191 3. 



