FOREST AND STREAM 
Jan. 25, 1913 
inj 
Hunting Emus 
O UR station (ranch) in Australia was situ¬ 
ated away in the west of the State of New 
South Wales, about 200 miles from the 
nearest town. It w-as in the heart of what we 
call the bush—the wild open and unsettled plains. 
The station itself covered some 300,000 acres, and 
it in turn was surrounded by other stations, some 
larger and some smaller. The paddocks were 
huge affairs, being usually four miles long by 
eight broad. Most of the country w'as covered 
with small trees and scrub, now'here too thick to 
ride through, though often you had to ride slow¬ 
ly. Naturally this sort of country being in its 
wild native state, and few people bothering to 
trouble the animals and birds, was full of game. 
Our station had a couple of creeks running 
through it and a large lake (about 800 acres) of 
fresh water. It was, therefore, the home of 
countless kangaroos and emus. 
The emu is a very large bird, ranking next 
to and much resembling the ostrich. Fortunately 
for itself, however, it has no valuable feathers. 
Instead it carries a dense brown covering of 
what at a distance looks like thatch. It is really 
a coarse sort of fibrous feather. If the skin be 
By AUSTRALIS 
completely removed and dressed with the feathers 
on, it makes a fair mat, something like a sheep¬ 
skin. But it is nothing to rave over. Nobody 
thinks of making his living at emu hunting. At 
the same time hunting emus is very good sport. 
It needs a good horse and a couple of good fleet 
dogs. The emu of course cannot fly. He has a 
pair of stubby wings which he spreads out while 
he is running, but I do not think they are of 
much assistance to him. But if he cannot fly, he 
can run to some purpose. Nothing slower than 
a greyhound or deerhound has any chance of 
catching him. Although a harmless bird, he is 
an awkward customer to handle, especially to 
one not used to him, and the dog on his first 
introduction usually get the worst of it. I had 
a very speedy little greyhound sent up to me 
from the South. I took her out one afternoon 
and sent her after a big cock emu. She soon 
caught up to him and jumped at his side in an 
endeavor to bring him down. The result was 
first a mouthful of feathers that half choked 
her, and second a kick in the side that sent her 
reeling and howling twenty feet away. She 
picked herself up and limped back to me, cough¬ 
ing up feathers and evidently wondering what 
she had struck. 
The kick of an emu is like that of a horse. 
If the kick catches the dog fairly, it often kills 
him, and I have seen a man get his arm broken 
with one. Also the emu has a tricky habit of 
reaching forward with his leg and sweeping you 
with his claw. I remember one day finding an 
emu caught in a wire fence. I got him out after 
some trouble, and he was half suffocated before 
I finished. I was holding him by the neck, just 
behind the head, when there was a “swish.” It 
was the emu’s leg shooting out. It just missed 
my head, but caught the sleeve of my coat and 
ripped it to the shoulder. I let go at once and 
the bird was off at full speed. 
A trained dog never grabs at the emu's 
body. Instead, it races until it gets level with 
the bird, and then it springs at its long neck. 
It takes some experience and cleverness to ac¬ 
complish this, but once it is done, it is very 
effective. The emu topples over instantly and is 
easily dispatched. It is capital sport of an early 
morning to get a couple of dogs after a big 
emu cock. Your horse, if a good one, enters 
SABLE ANTELOPE. 
From painting by Archibald Thorburn. 
