ORNAMENTAL WATERFOWL. 193 
GENUS MALACORHYNCAHUS. 
This genus contains but one species, of which no 
specimen has as yet been imported alive. It is an inhabitant 
of Southern Australia, where it is known to the Colonists as the 
“ Soft-billed” or ‘‘ Pink-eyed Duck.” 
MEMBRANACEOUS DUCK. 
(Malacorhynchus Membranaceus ). 
The sexes are alike, the ground colour of the plumage 
being a clear grey, transversely striped throughout with dark 
brown; behind the eye a pink spot, the bill and legs 
are brown, the former very broad and spoonlike in shape, 
furnished with a full, deep, fleshy membrane. Nothing is, I 
believe, known of its nesting habits, and to Gould’s “ Birds of 
Australia” we owe the little information which exists respecting 
this curious Shoveler, which must not be confounded with 
Hymenolemus malacorhynchus, the Blue Duck of Australia. 
‘* Although this is by no means a common bird in any part of Australia 
that I have visited, it is very generally distributed over the southern latitudes 
of that country, and it also occasionally visits Van Diemen’s Land; its 
occurrence, however, is very irregular, the shortness or duration of the 
intervals being evidently influenced by some peculiarites of the season. 
Shallow freshwater lagoons seem to be its favourite places of resort, hence 
in New South Wales during the rainy season, when the flats and hollows 
are temporarily filled with water, giving life to myriads of the lower animals, 
upon which this Duck feeds, its presence may almost at all times be looked 
for, while on the other hand it is seldom to be met with during the opposite 
periods or seasons of drought. As this bird has never yet been seen out of 
Australia, or even on the northern shores of that country, we may reasonably 
suppose that towards the interior it finds situations suited to its existence, 
and where it doubtless breeds ; but respecting this portion of its economy no 
particulars whatever have yet been ascertained. No one of the tribe that I 
have observed in a state of nature presents a more elegant or graceful 
appearance than this little Duck, which is generally seen in small companies 
of from six to twenty in number, swimming over the placid lagoons and 
