of the river, rising every few yards in order, apparently, to let his companion see the course he 

 was taking. The informant says he had not the heart to endeavour to recapture his prize, and 

 he let them go as a tribute to the faithful care of the parent birds." 



Professor MacGillivray said that Casarca rutila might be termed with equal propriety a 

 Duck or a Goose, and he demonstrated this by the anatomy of the bird. I may mention another 

 point of similarity : the male of the Paradise Duck hisses, when provoked, after the manner of 

 the domestic Gander. 



A snapshot, showing a pair of these birds, in very characteristic positions, appeared in the 

 New Zealand Graphic and, by permission, I have much pleasure in reproducing it here. 



PAIR OF PARADISE DUCKS. 



Mr. Morgan Carkeek, who sent me some fine young Paradise Ducks from the Marlborough 

 District in January, states that, in his opinion, this species breeds twice in the year. He 

 found it quite numerous in the mountain streams or river-beds, and met with many broods of 

 young ones. He counted generally seven or eight, and on one occasion thirteen, in a brood. 



Mr. Henry, the caretaker of Eesolution Island, says of the Paradise Duck : "I take them 

 to be very local, for I have known a pair to remain in a little bay in the Te Anau Lake for a 

 whole year and probably two years. The ablest Drake, with his mate, takes possession of the 

 best feeding-ground, marks out the boundary of his domain, and protects it against all comers. 

 He keeps a sharp look-out for intruders, and if they alight on his side of the point he comes along, 

 followed by his mate, and drives them off, or has a fight .... The Ducks only scream and 

 scold, but the drakes collar each other and beat away with their wings until they are so exhausted 

 that they are unable to fly for some time afterwards." 



A remarkable instance of the "homing" instinct, or sense of direction, on the part of this 

 Duck is given by Mr. J. M. Eitchie, of Boloraid, Dunedin, in the following words : " This bird 

 had become domesticated, and lived at a sheep station twenty-one miles from Timaru. It 

 belonged to the house-keeper, who had clipped its wings, and it spent its life between the home- 

 stead and a pond close by. In the course of time its mistress left for the neighbourhood of 

 Christ church, and she carried the Duck with her in a basket. Her journey was by train, twenty- 

 one miles to Timaru, then there was a change into another train and a journey of ninety-five 

 miles ; finally came a coach drive of about ten miles. By-and-bye the Duck disappeared from its 

 new home, and was looked upon as lost. Then its mistress returned to her previous domicile some 

 time after, and to her intense surprise found that the Duck had revisited its old haunts, and was 

 settled on the pond as before. It could not fly, and no one was known to have carried it, so that 

 the only remaining hypothesis was that it had walked over 120 miles, threading its way by many 

 cross roads, over bridges and across streams, through country which presents great variety of 

 contour in hill, valley, and river. A Duck that could do that could do anything ! " 



