SUB-FOSSIL REMAINS FROM KING ISLAND. 
its height was 4^ ft. — that is less than the mainland form — it 
weighed 40 lbs. to 50 lbs. ; the male was slightly larger than the 
female, but there was not much difference; and, finally, Cowper 
informed his catechist that he had himself killed no fewer than 
300 birds. 
It is rather curious that the naturalists appear to have con- 
tented themselves with questioning Cowper, and apparently made no 
attempt to capture a specimen, which would have been a much more 
satisfactory manner in which to determine the nature of the bird. 
for many years sealers and fishermen frequented King Island, 
and if many of them followed Cowper’s example in regard to his 
wholesale slaughter of the bird, as doubtless they did, it is not at 
all surprising that the members of the Field Naturalists’ Club, 
who visited King Island in 1887, found not a trace of the Emu at 
Sea Elephant Hay on the very spot where, eighty-five years 
earlier, the French naturalists had questioned Cowper. 
In addition to the collection secured by Messrs. Johnston and 
Morton we have the extensive one made by one of us, and Mr. Id. Id. 
Scott, Curator of the V ictoria Museum in Launceston, generously 
placed all of his material at our disposal. We have been in frequent 
communication with Mr. Scott, who has assisted us in every 
possible wav, and we desire to record our special thanks to him. ‘ 
he whole collection, upon which the following account is 
based, contains, apart from many others that evidently belono- to 
decidedly immature birds, the following bones: 
1. Sixty-four femora. 
2. Forty-one tibio-tarsi. 
3. Seventy tarso-metatarsi. 
4. Four pelves of which the total length can be measured 
and parts of sixteen others. 
Parts of six skulls. 
One pectoral arch. 
Portions of three sterna. 
Fourteen fibulae. 
Ribs. 
10. Vertebral bodies. 
11. Toe bones. 
1 . Femur. 
(Plate 2.) 
The sixty-four femora vary in length from 
A mature /). novce-hollandice measures 238 mm 
of that of D. peroni ( = D. ater) is given as 180 * ’ 
5 . 
6 . 
7 . 
8 . 
9. 
186-130 mm. 
and the length 
O 
* In his work on “Extinct Birds ” In osm tr„.. nr T 
Vieillot applied the specific n: «« «&r &SSLS: clZaZ^Z^'^ POiD i 8 out 
the same author makes no mention of PO'on or' the lie “XT Cph uo’, , aild also that 
proposed the specific name peroni for the extinct Kangaroo Island ^ 1 " othschlld therefore, 
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