2-979-627 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Southern Australia - the Dead Emu, 1857. 'The taking of the Emu is a favourite sport of the aborigines: the emu is caught in very large nets, twenty yards long and five feet high, which are here made of the roots of the marsh, baked and chewed, and then spun. Several natives will watch the emus as they go to drink at the lagoons, having heard the birds whistling, and set their nets in readiness; they then drive the emus towards the nets, where other natives are lying in ambush; the birds get frightened and entangled, the natives rush upon them, and when in the net seize hold of them and kill them with spears and wirris'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.