﻿208 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Nor do tlie&e tame birds appear to distinguisli between tliose to wliose presence 

 they are most accustomed and casual visitors, indicating that their sense of 

 security is due to the circumstance that they have never been molested by any- 

 one. When rearing young of their own, however, they are usually more shy, 

 one of the parent birds at a time then only coming to the liouse, the other 

 keeping at a respectful distance in charge of the brood. We lately took up 

 some tame ducks and placed them \Tpon the lake. The wild ones had not 

 mixed with them when I left the station last March, the tame ducks evi- 

 dently being masters of the position from, their greater size and strength. 

 The brood of the Grey Duck rarely exceeds five in number. I have found its 

 nest in the large tussocks of snow grass on the moraine at the upper end of the 

 lake, close to the ordinary horse-track, and at a considerable distance from any 

 shelter. 



The Black Teal are usually associated in small flocks, and those which 

 occupy the lake are generally to be found sitting on half-submerged logs close 

 to the bank, from which they appear to watch the small fish, etc., upon which 

 they chiefly feed. Like the other birds upon the lake they are by no means 

 shy, quietly dropping into the water and swimming away if approached too 

 closely. I have no knowledge of their mode of nidification or breeding. 



The Whio, or Blue Duck, is rarely found upon the lake, except diiring 

 heavy freshes in the feeders, when they occasionally come down to the mouths 

 of the streams in search of food. They ordinarily occupy the deeper pools of 

 the rivers, close to a rapid, their peculiar shrill and sibilant note being dis- 

 tinctly heard over the noise of the loudest cataract. Indeed, they appear 

 specially to have been endowed with this note, in consequence of their 

 frequenting such localities. These birds are very tame, looking with an 

 appearance of wonder and surprise, mixed with a dash of stupidity, at intruders 

 upon their privacy, and rarely taking to the wing unless closely pui-sued, and 

 and then only flying to a short distance. They breed in November and 

 December, and, like the Paradise Duck, sometimes bring up two broods in the 

 year. The lai-gest niimber of young birds I have seen of a single brood was 

 six. In seeking for food they usually stand upon a stone in the middle of 

 some rapid, from which they pick up any stray article of diet which is being 

 carried by, whilst they are also constantly seen busily engaged in searching for 

 food below the water in the rapids, in doing which they use their wings like 

 hands, to cling to the stones in order to assist them in overcoming the rush of 

 the water. They appear to be much attached to their young, but, unlike the 

 Paradise Duck, use no stratagem to draw ofi" an enemy, whilst the young ones 

 merely move from spot to spot to escape danger, rarely diving. 



I have seen nothing peculiar in the habits of the Cormorants which 

 frequent the lake. They leave the district in the breeding season, resorting, 



