ERIS.MATURA. ,y^ 



rufou.-butf margins .■ remain,/,,- of ,!„• n,„hr surface hro,ru, nnlh sHr.ry ,ir..,;sh-,rhite u.„r,i.,. U> 

 all the fiathers, yunng it a multUd appearance, rarticuJarlg „n th. fnr.neck and tiank. : hnu,er 

 nndi-r tail -coverts trhil,', wnslifd Jvil/i pale rufous-biifi'. 



Dislnh„lio„.-Nes, South Wales, \-ictoria, South Australia, Western Austraha, Tasntan.a. 

 qpsllli ran,,.eof the Blue-billed Duck has been largely extended since the pubHcation of 

 J- Gould's " Handbook to the Birds of Austraha," in 1865. At that time it l>ad only been 

 recorded from Western Australia. In the " Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South 

 Wales.'Dr.L, P. Kamsay subsequently added South Australia, Victoria, and Southern New 

 South Wales. In 1889 I extended its range to Trangie, in Central New South Wales and 

 to lasmania,m iSgi,^. the latter consequent upon a communication received from Dr L Holden 

 St:ll farther north in New South Wales is it now recorded, a specimen having been obtained by 

 Mr.K. Grant, Tax.dernnst to the Australian Museum, at Uourke, in the North-western portion of 

 the State, and only seventy miles south of the Queensland border. There are specimens in the 

 Australian Museum Collection procured at Trangie, Dubbo, and Inveralochy, the latter locality 

 being one hundred and fifty two m.les south of Sydney, and the nearest place to the metropolis 

 1 have known it to occur. There are also specimens purchased in the Sydney and Melbourne 

 markets. From \ ictona I have seen examples obtained at the Gippsland Lakes, and from a 

 back-water of the Murray River, near Swan Hill, and its eggs taken in South-western Australia. 

 Mr. Robert Grant has handed me the following note :^" I have shot the Blue-billed Duck 

 (Lns,,n,t,,n, a„st,al,s) in several localities in the Central and \\-estern Districts of New South 

 W ales During a drought, when the Macquarie River was little more than a chain of water- 

 holes, I procured specimens there, also at Budda Lake, near Trangie, and in a biliabong of the 

 Darling Kiver, near Bourke, five hundred and eight miles north-west of Sydney." 



The late Mr. K. H. Bennett, of Yandembah Station, near Booligal, South-western New 

 South \yales records:-- Hitherto Western Australia has always, if I do not mistake, been 

 regarded as the exclusive habitat of this bird; but that it does occasionally, though it would 

 seem very rarely, wander far beyond the boundaries of that colony is evidenced by" my having 

 met with It on several occasions during the winter and spring of last year. This period was an 

 extremely wet one over the whole of Australia, and particularly in this usually dry portion of 

 New South Wales, and, as a result, this and several other species of aquatic birds that I had not 

 previously observed during a residence of thirty years in this locality, appeared here. On one 

 occasion I had the good fortune to discover a nest which contained two eggs just upon the 

 point of hatching, and on which the female was sitting, whilst only a few yards distant the male 

 evidently proud ot his charge, was swimming about in company with six or seven newly hatched 

 young ones.. I came quite close to the birds before they observed me, the female droppin-' from 

 the nest like a lump of lead, and disappeared beneath the water the instant she did so "whilst 

 the male and young ones dived at once, and none of them reappeared until they had pu't some 

 sixty yards between themselves and me. The nest was a neatly made structure composed of 

 rushes, but without any lining, and was placed in a low dense Pohx^omn, bush, some six or 

 eight inches above the water. The eggs were very large for the size of the bird, white in colour 

 and of a very coarse texture. As a proof that this was not an exceptional instance of this rare' 

 bird breeding here, I may mention that on a subsequent occasion, on another sheet of water 

 some twenty-hve miles distant, I saw another brood of young ones in company with their 

 parents." 



From Melbourne, Mr. G. A. Keartland wrote me as follows :-" In Victoria the Swan Hill 

 District is one of the most favoured resorts of the Blue-billed Duck (Enswaf,n-a australh) These 

 bi rds also frequ entLak^ann andajiLimbei^oMagoons and swamps in the vicinity of the 

 ' Nest and Eggs Austr. Bds,, App., p. 407 (18S9). f RecT Austr7 Uus^^dClU^Ji^. ' 



I Ibis, 1891, p. 143. 



