154 ANSERES ERISMATURA 



and tail feathers brown and unfreckled ; an indistinct white stripe 

 from the base of the upper mandible below the eye almost to the 

 nape, chin and throat also white ; below silvery grey mottled and 

 barred with brown, darkest on the breast. 



A young bird has the head and neck slightly freckled with white 

 and on the lower neck and upper parts the feathers are mostly 

 brown and freckled, the pure chestnut gradually taking their 

 places. 



Distribution. The Maccoa is certainly the rarest of the South 

 African Ducks. Smith, who first discovered it, obtained his speci- 

 mens at Verloren Vlei, in the Piquetberg division, and at the mouth 

 of the Orange Eiver ; it is occasionally met with on the Cape Flats 

 near Cape Town. Mr. Layard mentions that it was particularly 

 abundant there, together with the South African Pochard, in 1858 ; 



FIG. 47. Head of Erismatura maccoa. x i 



he further states that Mr. Dumbleton shot an example at Victoria 

 West, not very far from Deelfontein, where it has been recently 

 procured by Colonel Sloggett's collectors, Messrs. Seimund and 

 Grant. Outside Cape Colony Ayres shot an example on the Vaal 

 River near Potchefstroom in December, and there is another now 

 in the South African Museum, a young female, obtained by Mr. 

 Eriksson in the Tebra Country west of Lake Ngami in April, while 

 Mr. Murray tells me he has shot a good many near Mafeteng in 

 Basutoland. It has not yet been met with in Natal, Rhodesia or 

 German South-west Africa. 



North of the Zambesi it reappears at Lake Naivascha, in British 

 East Africa, and in Shoa in Southern Abyssinia. 



Habits. Smith describes the Maccoa as an exceedingly shy 

 bird, seldom venturing out of the shelter of the reeds and rushes 

 when danger threatens. It swims very low in the water, only the 

 top of its back showing ; it seldom or never takes to flight, but dives 



