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The voice of the Emu is a kind of low booming sound. 

 The eggs are six or seven in number, of a dark green color, and 

 are much esteemed by the natives as food. When the natives 

 take an Emu, they break its wings, a curious custom, of no per- 

 ceptibk. utility. Young men and boys are not permitted to eat 

 the flesh of this bird. 



The APTERYX.-^This extraordinary bird, whose name is 

 derived from the apparent absence of wings, those members being 

 merely rudimentary, inhabits Australia and the islands of New 

 Zealand. It conceals itself among the densest fern, and when 

 hunted by dogs, it hastens to seek a refuge among rocks and in 

 the chambers which it excavates in the earth. In these chambers 

 its nest is made and the eggs laid. The natives hunt it with 

 great eagerness, as the skin is used for the dresses of chiefs, who 

 are so tenacious of them that they can hardly be persuaded to part 

 with a single skin. The feathers. are employed to make artificial 

 flies. When attacked it defends itself by rapid and vigorous 

 Strokes with its powerful feet. 



The Dodo. — This singular bird, which is supposed to be 

 extinct, was discovered at the Mauritius by the earlier voyagers. 

 For many years their accounts of the 

 Dodars were supposed to be mere 

 flights of fancy. Lately, however, 

 the discovery of several relics of this 

 bird in various countries has set the 

 question at rest. Not so the question 

 of the proper position of the bird. 

 Some think it belongs to the pigeons, 

 and some to the ostriches. In the 

 Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Eng- 

 land, are a head and foot of the Dodo, 



sole remnants of a perfect specimen known to have existed in 

 1700 ; and in the same place, in the year 1847, during the meet- 

 ing of the British Association, were gathered together ihe whole 

 of the existing remains from every country. 



25 T 



The Dodo. 



