20 



An old bushman expressed to me his conviction that the Mountain Duck repairs year after 

 year to the same nest, placing new layers of flags and weeds upon it. On pulling a nest of 

 considerable size to pieces, he found fragments of egg-shell at lower levels, as if indicating former 

 occupations. The eggs vary slightly in size, but 2'3 in. in length, by 1'5 in. in breadth may be 

 taken as a fair measurement. They are of a beautiful ovoido-elliptical shape ; and, on being 

 washed, the surface presents a delicate pale cream-colour, the green tinge referred to in the 

 'Birds of New Zealand' (vol. ii., p. 278) being apparently due to soiling by contact with the 

 bird's feet. One of these specimens also exhibited a decidedly green tinge before being washed. 



Mr. Ernest DeLautour, in an interesting letter on Trout-fishing, which he recently 

 communicated to the Press, mentions this Duck. Writing from a ' toetoe ' hut, on the banks of 

 the Tongariro Eiver, he says that for two months eight Mountain Ducks remained constantly at 

 his very door. So far from being indifferent divers, as was supposed, he states that they used 

 to spend the whole of every morning in diving after food, at which they were even more expert 

 than the Shag. He adds : " Bitterns are very numerous, and once one walked into my ' whare,' 

 and on my catching him, with a bag, vomited up nine small carp, with two of which I killed a 

 brace of trout." 



Mr. Guthrie- Smith, who is evidently a lover of birds, says in his published account of ' Bird- 

 life on a Bun ' : — 



Although the Whio, or Whistler, as the natives call it, is fairly plentiful, I have only known one occasion 

 — after a violent southerly gale, when a brace of them appeared on the lake — of its being seen away from the 

 haunts peculiarly its own, the rushing, shadowed creeks half-blind with fern and koromiko. I have given 

 orders that this delightful bird shall be in no way molested, for there are few sounds more characteristic of 

 wild New Zealand than the startled half -indignant whistle of the Mountain-duck. Dipping from the 

 summer's sultry heat into some deep fern-feathered gorge, I have often paused to watch him. The little 

 waterfalls dash into diamonds on his slate-blue plumes. He is thoroughly at home in the bubbling 

 champagne pools. Where the swift stream shows every polished pebble clear he can paddle and steer 

 with ease. 



I received from Waikanae on Saturday, the 12th December, an adult pair of the Mountain- 

 duck, with a bird of the first year, and a fledgling from another brood. The last-mentioned 

 accidentally hung itself in the wire-netting of its enclosure. The others were very shy at first, 

 but soon adapted themselves to their new life, and took readily to their diet of cooked potato 

 and rice. When alarmed they uttered a loud whistling cry — especially the young bird ; at other 

 times their note was a low rasping one, like the sound produced by drawing an object quickly 

 against the teeth of a large comb. 



There is a nestling of this species in the Auckland Museum. Entire upper-surface olivaceous 

 brown, the down-filaments being long and coarse ; under-parts yellowish-white, tinged with brown 

 on the breast ; sides of the face yellowish- white, with a conspicuous blackish-brown streak 

 through the eyes ; there is an obscure crescent-shaped mark of white behind each wing, and 

 another of a more rounded form on each side of the rump. The tail consists of small feathers 

 with downy filaments. Bill, brown ; under-mandible, pale-yellow ; legs, yellowish. 



HEAD OF MOUNTAIN DUCK. 



