The Stiff-tailed Ducks. 38 1 



" Presently the binocular rested on six 

 of the most extraordinary wild-fowl we 

 ever met with gambolling and splashing 

 about on the water, chasing each other, 

 now above now beneath its surface like a 

 school of porpoises ; they appeared half 

 birds, half water-tortoises, with which the 

 lagoon abounds. We were well sheltered 

 by a fringe 7 of sedges, and presently the 

 strangers entered a small reed-margined 

 bight, swimming very deep, only their 

 turtle-shaped backs and heavy heads in 

 sight. Here we crept down on them, 

 and as they sat, splashing and preening 

 in the shallow water, stopped three two 

 dead, the third escaping, winged. They 

 proved to be a duck and drake of the 

 White-fronted Duck, Erismatura mersa 

 heavily built diving-ducks, round in the 

 back, broad and flat in the chest, with 

 small wings like a Grebe, and long, stiff 

 tails like a Cormorant the latter, being 

 carried under water as a rudder, is not 

 visible when the bird is swimming. The 

 enormously swollen bill of the drake 

 pale waxen blue in colour completed 

 as singular a picture of a feathered fowl 

 as the writer ever came across : they 

 were, in fact, no less remarkable in form 

 and colour, now we had them in hand, 



