144 Letters, Extracts, Notices, 8^c. 



rarely, wander far beyond the boundaries of that colony is 

 evidenced by my having, as stated above, 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 so 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 on the point of hatching, and 

 on which the female was sitting, whilst only a few yards 

 distant the male, evidently proud of his charge, was swim- 

 ming about in company with six or seven newly hatched 

 young ones. Unfortunately, when I came suddenly on this 

 family-scene I had no gun, otherwise, from my close proxi- 

 mity to the birds before they observed me, I could scarcely 

 have failed to obtain a specimen. I came quite close to the 

 birds before they observed me, the female dropping from 

 the nest like a lump of lead, and disappearing 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 

 put 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 polygonum bush 

 some six or eight inches above the water. The eggs Avere 

 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 excep- 

 tional instance of this rare bird breeding here, I may men- 

 tion that, on a subsequent occasion, on another sheet of 

 water some 25 miles distant, I saw another brood of young 

 ones in company with their parents. 



I was very eager to obtain a specimen of this bird to send 

 to my friend Dr. E. P. Ramsay, of the Sydney Museum, but 

 I regret to say that all my efforts in that direction were 

 fruitless; for although I repeatedly fired at them, some- 

 times not more than forty yards distant, I never succeeded 

 in killing one, nor, so far as I could judge, even hitting 

 them, for, as Mr. Kerr remarks, " the duck M'as too sharp 



