332 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



of the lake to the other, a distance of half or three-quarters 

 of a mile, but generally they merely rise above the surface of 

 the water and fly off for about a hundred yards; during 

 flight their long legs are thrown out horizontally to their full 

 length ; while feeding they utter a slowly-repeated duck-cluck. 

 The stomach is extremely muscular, and the food consists of 

 aquatic insects and some kind of vegetable matter." 



Mr. Elsey informed me that he procured examples of this 

 bird "at a large lagoon, surrounded by a dense fringe of 

 Folygonum, near the Flinders. Among them was a female, 

 which contained matured eggs, and had, I felt convinced, a 

 nest somewhere in the ]?olygonum, but I could not find it, 

 though I closely examined the whole circuit. She remained 

 out the whole day without once retiring to sit. Its singular 

 calyptra was bright crimson, which colour seems to be due to 

 the excessive vascularity of the membrane, as it was com- 

 pletely blanched before I got the bird out of the water." 



I am indebted to Sir Daniel Cooper, Bart., for many acts 

 of kindness in connexion with Australian ornithology, which 

 I take this opportunity of recording. It is to him that I owe 

 a knowledge of the eggs of this species, two examples having 

 been transmitted to me, through his instrumentality, from 

 Eastern Australia, by his relative Mr. Hills. 



The ground-colour of these eggs is of a dark, shiny, raw 

 sienna-tint, over which are traced in various directions a 

 series of broad and fine hair- like contorted lines of brownish 

 black, which, by occasionally uniting laterally and crossing 

 each other, form here and there large blotches. Although 

 these markings are of the same character on each egg, 

 they are somewhat differently distributed; thus, on one of 

 the two I possess they are more numerous at the larger 

 end and absent at the smaller, while in the other they are 

 more abundant at the smaller and less so at the larger 

 extremity. The eggs are one inch and an eighth in length 

 by seven-eighths of an inch in breadth. They are, moreover, 



