472 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



partial loss of flight, the Auckland Islands Duck has learned to climb 

 very skilfully. Captive specimens in Sir Walter Buller's possession 

 never tried to use their wings, although they had ample opportunity 

 to do so. A male regularly climbed back and forth over a netting 

 wall, going out in the morning and returning to its mate inside the 

 enclosure in the evening. 



" Men never regarded the bleak, wind-swept Auckland Islands as 

 a very suitable place of abode. The southern Merganser, conse- 

 quently, has been given no place in folk-lore, legend, or fairy tale, 

 and, unlike its congener of the Far North, the Goosander, has not 

 entered into the lives of human beings." 



' Australian Zoologist.' — We are informed in the last number 

 of ' The Emu ' that the first part of the first volume of ' The 

 Australian Zoologist ' has appeared. It is issued by the Eoyal 

 Zoological Society of New South Wales, and edited by Allan E. 

 M'Culloch, Zoologist, Australian Museum, Sydney. 



Aviculture in Borneo and Java. — Mynahs (Eulabes javanensis) 

 are often kept as pets by natives, and in a Sultan's palace in Java, at 

 Djocjakarta, I saw several kept in cages, and his wives apparently 

 took great interest in them ; some had been taught to speak and 

 whistle. — B. B. Williams, ' The Sarawak Museum Journal,' II., p. 97. 



