SOME SPECIMENS OF AUSTRALIAN FAUNA AND FLORA. 191 



by the blacks, and have thus inherited a dread of man when on foot. They 

 are shot without much difficulty from the saddle or a vehicle, the usual 

 method being to drive round the bird in narrowing circles until within 

 range. 



The native companion, a bird of very much the same habits and size 

 as the wild turkey, but very different from him in plumage and appearance, 

 also frequents the plains, and is often found in very large flocks. Although 

 not generally esteemed as a table bird, he sometimes finds his way into the 

 game market, plucked and dressed, and masquerading as a turkey. An 

 occasional blue feather beneath the wing instead of the spangled grey of the 

 turkey now and again betrays the deception, but, as the birds at table are 

 accepted by all except experts as being genuine wild turkeys, the difference 

 in the flavour of the bird is not very marked. 



Wild ducks are almost universal in Australia. The finest of them all is 

 the beautiful mountain duck, found all over the continent, but which seems 

 more closely associated with the woods and waters of Lake George, in New 

 South Wales. On this broad sheet of water they float in countless thousands, 

 and nest in the thickets upon its banks. Next to them in size comes the 

 black duck, a long low bird as seen in the water, and one of the finest of 

 Australian wild ducks. The wood-duck is, according to strict scientific 

 classification, a diminutive goose. It has the head, bill, and body of a goose, 

 and yet in popular estimation it is, and always will be, a wild duck, and 

 one of the most beautifully plumaged of Australian ducks. The drakes have 

 some of the brilliant tints of the English mallard, and the neck and head are 

 a rich velvet brown, while the breast-feathers are beautifully spangled. The 

 Australian teal is much larger than the English bird, but otherwise not 

 unlike it. These four varieties are the best known, but the widgeon and 

 blue-wing are also plentiful, and outside these are at least half a dozen 

 varieties less familiar to Australian sportsmen. 



The black swan can hardly be called a game bird, but it is shot on all 

 the lakes and swamps along the southern coast. In the Gippsland lakes it 

 is not an uncommon thing to find thousands of swans in a single flock, and 

 when these rise for a flight, striking the water with feet and wings, the 

 noise can be heard for miles across the lake. When means have been taken 

 to get rid of a rather rank flavour, just as the taste of the gum-leaves is 

 removed from opossum flesh, the swan is occasionally eaten as game. Both 

 swans and ducks are very largely shot from light punts, and for many years 

 punt and swivel guns were used with terrible destruction by men whose 

 business it was to supply the game markets of the large cities. In Victoria 

 the Legislature has by enactment declared the swivel gun an illegal instru- 

 ment, and since its abolition the ducks are returning in hundreds to their 

 old breeding-grounds. 



Smaller game is abundant everywhere. The snipe, as nearly as possible 



