
at the smaller apex only. The colour varies in all shades of dark 
green, and occasionally one egg in a sitting is found of a very pale 
green. The shell is pitted and granulated all over, closely 
resembling shagreen in appearance. ‘The dimensions of an egg are 
about 5°5 x 3:5 inches. Dr. Bennett was mistaken; when stating in 
“The Wanderings of a Naturalist in New South Wales,” that the 
emu always lays an odd number of eggs, 7, 9, 11 or 13; perhaps he 
always found an odd number, Not only writers since his time, but 
those anterior to him, furnish contrary evidence. Oxley found an 
emu’s nest in one of the brushes, which contained 10 eggs. Captain 
Hunter wrote in his Historical Journal of the transactions at Port 
Jackson : —‘* Sept., 1791, a number of emus have been seen lately, 
and this appears to be the season in which they breed, as a nest was 
found at the head of the harbour, containing 14 eggs. The nest was 
composed of fern, but it had more the appearance of a quantity of 
fern collected for a person to sit on than a nest.” 
92 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY, 
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Food. —The emu feeds on grass, cropping the herbage like a cow 
or a horse, also on wild fruit as the quandong or native peach. It 
will eat almost any vegetables ; it swallows pieces of hard substances 
which assist in grinding the food. Oxley, in the account of his | 
explorations, refers to it thus :—‘ For the last 50 miles we have not 
seen a stone or a pebble of any kind save two, and they were taken 
out of the maws of two emus.” 
Where found. —The emu is found all over Australia, except the 
north-west portion; it frequents the plains and the open forest 
country. It was once plentiful in the coast districts—now the abode 
of man, by whom it has been ruthlessly hunted and shot down, on 
account of the damage done by the birds to the wire fences of the 
squatters, and the quantity of grass consumed by them. Not only 
are the birds destroyed, but men are employed to search for the eggs 
and break them. On a station in the Riverina district, during the 
breeding season of 1881, no less than 1,500 were destroyed ; and in 
the Cobar district in 1887, more than that number were broken. 
The Sydney Morning Herald, of Oct. 15th, 1888, chronicles that! 
10,000 emus were destroyed in the Wilcannia district during the 
first nine months of that year. Collins, writing of his time, says 
emus were plentiful about Rose Hill, near Parramatta; they were 
seen in flocks of about twelve. On one occasion two wandered into 
the camp there, and getting mixed up with the women and children 
the men were afraid to fire, so they escaped. Leichhardt, when 
exploring around the Gulf of Carpentaria, met with emus almost 
daily. He saw about 100 in the course of eight miles, in flocks of 3, | 
5or10 Both Flinders and Péron stated that they were numerous 
on Kangaroo and King’s Island. In May, 1893, the Archduke 
Kranz Ferdinand d’ Este, of Austro-Hungary, visited New South | 
Wales, and was taken on a shooting Beet aen by the Hon. F. B. 
Suttor, then Minister of Public Instruction, the locality being 50 
miles beyond Narramine, and about 350 miles west of Sydney. 
Here a flock of emus was driyen past the Archduke, who succeeded 


