64 ■ From Magazines, ^c. [ 



Emu 

 St July 



dome-shaped. Length of skull from frontal suture to occiput 

 not or only slightly exceeding 60 mm. Greatest width of skull 

 not or only slightly exceeding 55 mm. 



Habitat. — King Island, Bass Strait. Now extinct. 



It is very interesting to know that the remains of eggs were 

 frequently met with, either in small fragments in the loose sand 

 or in patches embedded in the firmer soil beneath. In one or 

 two instances fully half the shell was found completely flattened 

 out and fractured into small fragments, with the surface more 

 or less removed by the action of the driving sand. 



The original discovery of an Emu on the islands of Bass 

 Strait was made in 1802. In December of that year Baudin, in 

 his exploring ships, Geographe, Naturaliste, and Casuariua, 

 visited Kangaroo Island, from which they carried three Emus 

 alive to Paris. A little later four naturalists of the expedition 

 were left stranded at Sea Elephant Bay, King Island, while the 

 ships stood out to sea, owing to bad weather. They were 

 fortunate in reaching a sealers' camp, the chief man among 

 whom, Cowper by name, entertaining the Erenchmen in his 

 quarters. An account is published of the naturalists seeing two 

 " Casoars " hanging in the larder, and closely questioning 

 Cowper, who said he had killed over 300 birds, his dog being 

 specially trained for the purpose. It is singular that the 

 naturalists did not procure any specimens of the bird, though 

 the descriptions accurately fit an Emu. They may have con- 

 sidered it identical with the Kangaroo Island bird. It is a 

 matter of great regret that in the early days of Australian 

 exploration so few specimens of the fauna of these islands were 

 preserved. 



This "Memoir" is well illustrated with eight large photo.- 

 plates. 



Reviews. 



[" Ornithologists at Warunda Creek."] 



Captain S. H. White, of South Australia, has issued, under the 

 above title, a neat little brochure, which is a pleasantly written 

 " Record of the A.O.U.'s Expedition to Eyre Peninsula, October, 

 1909, with Notes on Ornithology, Botany, and Entomology." 

 The " Record " may be taken as supplementary to the official 

 report of Mr. Robert Hall, C.M.Z.S., which appeared in The 

 Emu, vol. ix., p. 123, and contains an interesting narrative and 

 independent bird observations. Capt. White has added the 

 Chough {Corcorax uiclanorhaiiipJius) and the familiar Blue Wren 

 {Mahirus cyaneiis) — its most westerly recorded range — to the 

 list of birds, while he holds that the Strepera observed was not 

 vielanoptera. Mr. J. W. Mellor has since described the bird as 

 fusca (see present issue of TJie Emu, p. 34). 



