40 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



upon them, and sat steadily for eight days, when the female disturbed 

 him, and he left the nest for eight days, the eggs being exposed during 

 the whole of this time to the severe weather of February. At the end 

 of this period the cock resumed his task of incubation, and sat for 

 sixty-two days after the commencement of the second incubation. 

 At this time it was thought that the health of the male bird would 

 suffer from the long continued confinement and abstinence from food, 

 as he refused to eat anything while on the nest, although food and 

 water were placed within his reach, and he only came off the eggs three 

 times during the long period of incubation. As the date at which the 

 eggs should have been hatched, counting from the first commencement 

 of incubation had passed, it was feared they were not fertile ; but on 

 placing them in warm water their active motion soon testified to the 

 existence of living Emeus within; they were consequently returned to 

 the nest and hatched in due course. Of the seven eggs one was rotten, 

 two young Emeu chicks died in the shell, and four were hatched, one 

 of which was accidentally killed by the male. Of the remaining eggs 

 several were eaten, and found of unquestionable excellence. The shell 

 is very stout, and but for the singular breaking up of the arrangement 

 of the structure just before hatching, the chicks would apparently be 

 unable to get out of its strong cradle. The young Emeus were reared 

 by hand lest their parents should injure them, and were for a few days 

 crammed with chopped lettuce, rib-grass, clover, leaves, and custard. 

 Before the end of the first week they had learned to feed themselves, 

 and their chief food soon consisted of grass, rib-grass (Plantago can- 

 ceolata), cabbage, with clover, and some bread and meal. In drinking 

 they were observed to spoon up the water with the lower mandible and 

 allow it to run to the back of the mouth. They soon became so tame 

 that they were troublesome from the difficulty with which they were 

 kept out of the house. 



It is fortunate that there do not appear to be any insuperable diffi- 

 culties in the way of breeding both Cereopsis geese and Emeus in these 

 islands, since they are rapidly becoming scarce in their native country, 

 and will probable meet the fate of the original human population 

 of the Australian continent and be exterminated. Dr. George Bennett, 

 writing of the Emeu, says that in 1832 in visiting the interior of Aus- 

 tralia he travelled some hundreds of miles before even a solitary speci- 

 men was seen, and then instead of the flocks heard of in the early 

 periods of the colony, consisting of a dozen or more, he only saw two or 

 three at the most, and usually only a solitary bird. It is very much to 

 be feared that these birds, with the black swan, the cassouary, the 

 mooruk, the apteryx, the kangaroos, and many other smaller animals 

 of the southern fauna, will become as extinct as the bear, wild pig, wolf, 

 beaver and elk are in Britain, and the dodo, rhytina, moa, and great 

 auk, have in every part of the known world. 



The Emeus in the Zoological Gardens have not laid this year as yet, 

 and it is not likely that they will do so this year, as the season is so far 

 advanced ; they do not lay every year, but I have no doubt that if at- 



