AUSTRALIAN DUCK 
111 
brought the highest market price in Melbourne (R. Hall, 1909). I can testify myself 
to the excellent eating qualities of hybrids between this species and the Mallard, 
many of which I formerly raised on my ponds at Wenham, Massachusetts. 
MacPherson (1897) tells of a Maori method of cooking and preserving ducks 
in their own fat so that they would keep in calabashes for from one to two 
years. 
Hunt. Before the advent of white men the Maoris of New Zealand undoubtedly 
paid much attention to the capture of ducks. The ducks were caught in great num- 
bers by snares hung from a cord stretched across a river or lake-arm. Great duck 
drives on carefully preserved lakes took place during the moulting season, and were 
accompanied by solemn ceremonies on the part of the natives. Specially trained 
dogs were also used in hunting the moulting ducks. The Maori was also expert in 
capturing all species of ducks by swimming after them, seizing their feet and draw- 
ing them under (MacPherson, 1897). Colonel Cradock (1904) gives a good account 
of duck-shooting on the North Island. The sportsman is paddled up a river by a 
native in his canoe, and no paddlers are said to be more expert in getting silently 
up to ducks, which are shot as they rise out of the rushes on either bank. 
In western Australia the aborigines apparently lived on fish and turtles and did 
not attempt to snare birds. But in eastern Australia horizontal nets overhanging a 
river and suspended from lofty trees were used as drop-nets by the natives. A rather 
original method is described by Smj^th (in MacPherson, 1897) : a net sixty yards in 
length is stretched across a water course, with its lower part three or four feet above 
the water. One man proceeds up the river and cautiously moves so as to cause the 
ducks to swim toward the net. \Mien they are near enough he makes them rise and 
at the same time another native near the net throws up a piece of bark shaped like a 
hawk, and utters the cry of that bird. The ducks at that moment dip down and many 
are caught in the net. Sometimes as many as three dozen are taken at one time in 
this way. 
Market shooting was an important occupation in the earher days in eastern Austra- 
lia, and swivel and punt guns were used, imtil forbidden by law. 
Behavior in Captivity. A specimen of this duck was first received by the Lon- 
don Zoological Gardens in 1860. Others followed in 1863, 1865, 1866, but none bred 
until 1869. From that time till 1878 it nested regularly, the dates of hatching being 
nearly all for late June (P. L. Sclater, 1880). It has bred freely in various zoological 
gardens of Europe, and Mr. Le Souef writes me that it has done so in the Melbourne 
Gardens also. A mated pair which I kept for six or seven years bred every spring, 
and from them I reared at least forty young specimens. Two individuals which I 
reared at Wenham, Massachusetts, in 1914, were permitted the use of their wings 
