Emus were first reported as having been seen by Europeans when explorers visited the western coast of Australia in 1696; this was an expedition led by Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh who was searching for survivors of a ship that had gone missing two years earlier.[6] The birds were known on the eastern coast before 1788, when the first Europeans settled there.[7] The birds were first mentioned under the name of the "New Holland cassowary" in Arthur Phillip's Voyage to Botany Bay, published in 1789 with the following description:[8][9]