Jan. 25, 1913 
FOREST AND STREAM 
105 
into the spirit of the chase, and all you have to 
do is to sit him and ward him off the timber. 
Away in front the emu, with neck outstretched, 
is striding off at a tremendous rate, while your 
dogs are stretched out in a desperate endeavor 
to overhaul him. If the brush is very thick, the 
emu, who is used to it, will double and twist so 
much that the dogs are unable to head him. But 
if the brush is fairly open, the result will be 
that the dogs are presently beside him. If your 
horse is a good one, you are not far away. 
Then one of the dogs makes a mighty leap at 
the emu’s neck. Probably he misses, as the emu 
makes a desperate effort to evade him. The dog 
falls over and goes rolling into the scrub, mak¬ 
ing wild efforts to recover himself. But the 
other dog is now beside the emu, and he hurls 
himself at his prey. Very probably he, too, 
makes a miscalculation. I have seen this busi¬ 
ness repeated half a dozen times before the 
emu was pulled down. On the other hand I 
had a dog once that hardly ever failed to pull 
his bird down at the first jump. 
Emus are very curious birds. I mean their 
bump of curiosity is very highly developed. 
Often while camped out in the bush for lunch 
I have had them come right up to me. Anything 
strange seems to excite their curiosity. A red 
rag hung on a bush will bring emus up to it 
from a long distance. I have often amused my¬ 
self by attracting emus to within a few yards 
and then firing a revolver at them. The manner 
in which they tumbled over one another in a 
desperate endeavor to get away was very amus¬ 
ing, and each shot sent them faster. Of course 
on these occasions I never fired at the birds, 
except on an odd time when I wanted a skin. 
A bullet sputtering at their feet had the best 
effect. 
I was lying asleep under a bit of scrub one 
day, when a slight noise awoke me. I opened 
my eyes, and there were a dozen emus inspecting 
me and my belongings. One fine cock bird was 
standing nearly on top of me. After studying 
the birds for some little time I suddenly gave a 
yell and sprang to my feet. The effect was al¬ 
most incredible. The emu is a clumsy bird and 
cannot get up speed quickly. This little flock 
just tumbled over each other and several birds 
went sprawling in the dust. Some kicked at 
other birds and at imaginary foes. I could have 
caught the legs of one of them when I jumped 
up had I been foolish enough. 
The emu gets sadly bothered by the wire 
fences on the stations. Usually it pokes its long 
neck between two of the wires and scrambles 
through. Sometimes it trips, however, to step 
through, often with disastrous results. The emu 
after getting one leg through throws himself 
forward and of course falls over on the other 
side. His leg acts as a fulcrum and gives a 
twist to the wires, at the same time tightening 
them up. If the emu is very strong and the 
wire a bit corroded, he can break away. But 
usually he is held as in a vise and perishes 
miserably if no one comes along to get him free. 
In times of drouth the emu suffers very 
much. All the water in his district sometimes 
dries up, and the grass of course goes, too. 
Then the emu will wander long distances in his 
search for water. Often he will strike an extra 
strong fence and wander up and down it, mak¬ 
ing vain endeavors to get through, until he falls 
and dies. The last water hole, with its foot or 
so of muddy water, is often quite an emu ceme¬ 
tery. I have seen scores of the birds bagged 
in the mud, and too weak to get out. At drouth 
times the birds get too weak to run and can 
be caught on foot. 
Emu eggs are a curiosity and are largely 
exported. They are very large, about twenty 
times that of an ordinary hen, and are of a very 
rich and deep dark blue. An emu lays ten or 
twelve eggs at a clutch, in a rough nest made 
in the sand, and the station hands and stockmen 
often collect them for sale. Beneath the dark 
blue coloring there is a basis of pure white and 
the shell is very thick. The black fellows take 
advantage of these facts to carve the eggs, or 
rather to form cameo pictures of bush scenes 
on them. The bushmen themselves often put in 
their spare hours at the pastime, and I have 
seen some really artistic work done on the eggs. 
The young emus are prettily striped and the old 
birds are very careful of them. Sometimes a 
dingo or a fox will try to get at the young 
ones, but the mother bird goes at them furi¬ 
ously, and always drives them off. I once saw 
a dingo get his leg broken in this way. 
The emu has a curious custom, if he sees 
you at a distance, of squatting down on the 
ground, and of laying his long neck on the 
ground, to keep it from betraying him. It seems 
akin to the well-known custom the ostrich is 
reputed to have of burying its head in the sand. 
This habit is mostly adopted at nesting time and 
is of course done to prevent the nest from 
being discovered. Often, too, the hen emu will 
leave her nest if she sees anyone about and 
will go away from it in «a curiously crouched 
attitude with her neck and body almost touch¬ 
ing the ground. 
New Publications. 
The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore, by 
Ernest Thompson Seton, with over 500 draw¬ 
ings by the author. Doubleday, Page & Co. 
557 pages, cloth. 
Mr. Seton’s large and interesting volume— 
really the eleventh edition of the “Birch Bark 
Roll’’—contains much useful and interesting in¬ 
formation and is very suggestive. It is a book 
for boys, appealing especially to those who wish 
to be Indians and those who choose to be boy 
scouts, but may profitably be read by every out¬ 
door man. Perhaps there is no better way of 
suggesting its contents than to name the seven¬ 
teen sections into which it is divided. These are: 
Principles of Scouting; Spartans of the West; 
Purposes and Laws of the Woodcraft Indians; 
Honors and Degrees and Indian Name; Wood¬ 
land Songs, Dances and Ceremonies; Suggested 
Programs; Indoor Scouting Possibilities; Out¬ 
door Scouting; Signaling and Indian Signs; 
Campercraft; Games, Health and Woodland 
Medicine; Natural History; Mushrooms and 
Fungi; Forestry; Some Indian Ways and Camp¬ 
fire Stories. 
The field of outdoor life is wide, but Mr. 
Seton has covered much of it, and has given the 
small boy who longs to know something of the 
way in which his forefathers lived a vast deal 
to think about. 
Mr. Seton’s Woodcraft Indians—a boys’ club 
which he started near his place in Connecticut 
a number of years ago—have become famous, yet 
the author has been told that the inclusion of 
the word “Indian’’ in the title has hurt the move¬ 
ment. In his section, “The Spartans of the 
West,” therefore, he endeavors to show that the 
typical Indian—the best Indian—was a splendid 
man and had high ideals. Since in all com¬ 
munities there are people who are good and bad, 
strong and weak, efficient and worthless, he rea¬ 
sons that in considering the Indian it is fair to 
take the best examples of the race to represent 
his philosophy and excellence, just as we our¬ 
selves would prefer to have white Americans 
represented by Emerson, Lincoln or George Pea¬ 
body. With this in mind, he has given fifteen 
items in the Indian’s creed, most of which are 
just, fair and true. He quotes from a large num¬ 
ber of excellent authorities — people who have 
lived among Indians and know them—statements 
going to show that the Indian had this creed. 
Among these writers are George Catlin, Captain 
John G. Bourke, W. P. Clarke, Charles Eastman, 
Geo. Bird Grinnell, General Nelson A. Miles and 
others. The proof is of extraordinary interest. 
In a book so large as this almost every man 
will find something to which he can take excep¬ 
tion, yet the portions criticized by different peo¬ 
ple would be different, and over certain points 
the best authorities might disagree. 
On the whole, the book is extremely interest¬ 
ing, and it will undoubtedly have a large popu¬ 
larity. 
On one point Mr. Seton conveys an unjust 
idea, though after all it is perhaps rather^ the 
choice of a wrong word which gives this idea. 
He says that our soldiers “have been trained to 
hate the red men.” This is not true, as the 
author shows on many pages of the book. 
Soldiers have been trained to fight the red men 
because fighting is their business, and under 
orders they must fight. Yet Bourke, Dodge, Clarke 
and Crook—the very authorities who testify to 
the many good qualities that the Indians pos¬ 
sessed—were soldiers and fighters. They did not 
“hate” the Indians. We should be glad to see 
the word “fight” substituted for “hate” in the 
first line on page 58 of this book, the aim of 
which is to present only just ideas to the many 
boys who will read it. 
Pleasure for Olhers. 
Boston, Mass., Dec. 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: In behalf of the trustees of the Kuril 
Tattin Homes, allow me to express our appre- 
fiation of the subscription to Forest and Stream 
vhich is to be forwarded to the Homes in West- 
ninster. 
We are sure that the boys in the Homes will 
mjoy the periodical very much, as we have al- 
vays found that good healthy publications, such 
IS yours, make a direct appeal to our boys. We 
;an assure you that the paper will be well read, 
ind will be appreciated. 
Kindly convey our thanks to the kind donor. 
Appreciating your interest in the matter, I 
The stories and articles in Forest and 
Stream coming to its readers once a week, 
keep them in a closer touch with the maga¬ 
zine than is possible with a drawn-out monthly 
serial, consequently they do not lose interest in 
the paper; they are accustomed to read it 
weekly and anxiously await its arrival. 
