One of them was shot, at a considerable distance, with a
single ball, by a convict employed for that purpose by the Governor; its
weight, when complete, was seventy pounds, and its length from the end
of the toe to the tip of the beak, seven feet two inches, though there
was reason to believe it had not attained its full growth. On dissection
many anatomical singularities were observed: the gall-bladder was
remarkably large, the liver not bigger than that of a barn-door fowl,
and after the strictest search no gizzard could be found; the legs,
which were of a vast length, were covered with thick, strong scales,
plainly indicating the animal to be formed for living amidst deserts;
and the foot differed from an ostrich's by forming a triangle, instead
of being cloven.
Goldsmith, whose account of the emu is the only one I can refer to,
says, "that it is covered from the back and rump with long feathers,
which fall backward, and cover the anus; these feathers are grey on
the back, and white on the belly." The wings are so small as hardly to
deserve the name, and are unfurnished with those beautiful ornaments
which adorn the wings of the ostrich: all the feathers are extremely
coarse, but the construction of them deserves notice--they grow in pairs
from a single shaft, a singularity which the author I have quoted has
omitted to remark.
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