210 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



laid, the first being observed about the middle of February, 

 the last on the 10th of April. For the most part the 

 eggs were laid during a pretty severe frost, which it was 

 feared might have destroyed their vitality. Eleven of the 

 eggs were i^laced in a rude nest, formed for them in the 

 corner of the field, with a bower of spruce branches placed 

 over it. Unhke most other birds, it is the male emu alone 

 which sits upon the eggs. This, in the present instance, it 

 began to do on April 1st, ten days before the last egg was 

 laid. During each of the first four days he scattered all the 

 esss around him outside the nest. On the 5th of that month, 

 however, he began to sit close, and continued so to do till 

 the 28th of May, or fifty-eight days in all. During this pro- 

 tracted period, although closely watched, he was only observed 

 to leave the eggs three times, and that but for the space of 

 two or three minutes, which he spent in running round the 

 paddock. Food and water were kept constantly beside him, 

 but Mr Bell believes tliat during these fifty-eight days he 

 went absolutely without food. He was also observed to turn 

 the eggs regularly in the nest. The male and female re- 

 mained in the same enclosure during the first few days of 

 incubation, but as the chief anxiety of the female seemed to 

 be to get at and to destroy the eggs, it was found necessary to 

 separate her from her mate during the remainder of the period. 

 Of the eleven eggs sat upon, one, on the point of being 

 hatched, was unfortunately broken by the foot of the parent 

 bird, two were addled, other two disappeared, and six were 

 successfully hatched. The young were at first covered with 

 coarse down, arranged in alternate white and blackish-brown 

 stripes, while the head was prettily mottled. Four of them 

 were much darker, and the white more tinged with brown, 

 than the other two, the latter, of which the specimen ex- 

 hibited is one, were also somewhat smaller, and Mr Bell sug- 

 gests that these differences may prove to be sexual distinctions. 

 The down was supplanted by feathers, first on the head, which 

 by the 2d of August was nearly as black as it now is, and it 

 gradually disappeared after that date from the other parts of 

 the body. At the tips of most of tlie feathers, in the specimen 

 shown, the remains of tlie down may yet be seen. Eegarding 



