WOOD AND WASTE 31 



seen on the lake. They never, in fact, 

 willingly leave the haunts peculiarly their 

 own: the rushing shadowed creeks half 

 blind with fern and koromiko. Dipping in 

 smnmer's heat from the fern clad downs 

 and terraces of pumice grit, often have I 

 enjoyed the cool damp of his fern-hung 

 gorge, and have paused long to w^atch him 

 in his solitudes. The little waterfalls dash 

 into diamonds on his slate blue plumes. 

 He is thoroughly at home on the bubbling 

 champagne pools. Where the swift stream 

 shows each polished pebble clear he can 

 paddle and steer with ease. When not 

 thus occupied in getting his daily bread he 

 and his mate will climb on to some rock 

 islet, feet above the water, and there stand 

 for hours on alternate legs, preening their 

 feathers, stretching out their necks, and 

 generally enjoying their otium cum digni- 

 fate. The Blue Duck's startled, sibilant 

 whistle belongs to our New Zealand wilds 

 as peculiarly as the Curlew's call to the 

 moor and wasteland of the Old Country. 

 On lands like Tutira, cut up into innumer- 

 able inaccessible gorges, the Mountain Duck 

 is certain to survive. 



