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concealed from view, sometimes, too, at a considerable distance from the water. Occasionally, 
however, a more elevated site is fixed upon. On the famous Island of Motutaiko, in the Taupo Lake, 
there are some larg^e pohutukawa trees {Metrosideros tomenfosa). In the forked branches of these 
trees, some twenty or thirty feet above the surface of the water, the Grey Duck often builds her nest 
and hatches her young. The natives state that when the ducklings are ready to take to the water 
the old birds bring them down to the lake on their backs *. 
I have sometimes found its nest on the summit of a cliflf overlooking a river ; and in one instance 
placed in a bunch of Astelia, in the fork of a dead tree, at an elevation of 20 feet or more from the 
ground f . The nest is formed of dry grass, flags, or other soft materials placed loosely together in a 
circular form ; and the interior is lined with down, plucked from the bird’s own body. The eggs 
vary in number, there being sometimes as many as ten ; they are of a broadly oval form, measuring 
2'5 inches in length by 1‘6 in breadth, and are of a dull creamy-white colour. 
* Mr. Barker contributes the following “ A short account may interest you of a Grey Duct’s nest I discovered in a tree 
this spring, at Peel Forest ; I was walking through the bush to ascend the gorge of a small mountain-torrent that drains Mount 
Peel, when from a tree above my head flew a wild Grey Duck. On inspection the tree turned out to be an old broad-leaf, well 
covered with a mass of ferns, overhanging a hank which had evidently been in former times the south bank of the creek, now 
running some twenty feet away. On climbing a young tree close by I was surprised and pleased to see, in the hollow formed by the 
divergence of two large branches in the broad-leaf, a beautifully formed Grey Duck’s nest of fine down inside with a basis of 
small twigs, and containing nine eggs of a creamy-green colour. Tlie nest was made the more beautiful by the natural way the 
long pendent fronds of the ferns hung over and around it, completely hiding the mother from view when on the nest. On 
measuring the distance from the ground I found it to be thirteen feet nine inches. I was particularly anxious to find out how the 
mother uould contrive to get her young ones down, as unless she carried them I could not see how sho would manage it, for 
owing to the steepness of the tree they would not be able to clamber down, and even if shoved over the edge must tumble 
through small underwood on to hard stones. The bird’s way of getting to the nest was most ingenious : the nest was on the 
side of the tree away from the stream, and so obstructed with creepers that she could not get in on that side ; but on the other a 
branch grew at right angles to the tree over the bed of the stream : she flew on to this branch, walked along it, and where it 
joined the tree was a small hollow arch formed by the curving and meeting together again of two old stems ; through this small 
cavity she squeezed herself (so small is the orifice that if I had not seen it I could not have believed a Duck would think of 
working its way through), and on the other side about eight inches below her is the nest, into which by a steep slope she slides. 
The way from the nest along the hough was well worn by her constant traffic backward and forward. 
“ I visited the nest regularly for a week, when unfortunately bad weather set in, and it being in a rather inaccessible situation, 
owing to the torrents of water that come out of the narrow gorge after heavy rain, T was unable to got to it again for a fort- 
night, and when I did I was disgusted to find the young had all hatched out and gone, and the rain had quite spoilt the nest 
However, I made a close examination of the tree, and could find no signs whatever of disturbance along tho edges of the cavity 
in which the nest was built, or down the scmiporpendicular fern-covered trunk of the tree, such as one might expect had they 
endeavoured to descend on that side ; while through the arch I discovered some of the down of the nest clinging to the side of 
the hark, as if they had gone that way. I also looked well on the ground beneath, but could find no sign except under the arch 
connected with the bough at right angles to the tree ; here was a small piece of moss-covered bark, which was detached from the 
bottom edge of the arch and had evidently been dislodged by their journeyings. However, I was fully convinced that they had 
escaped out of the nest through the hole on to tho branch, the other way being quite impracticable. How the parent bird 
managed to get her young to the ground, I am unable to tell you ; but I incline to the belief that she carried them on her back, 
as some bushmen assured me they had actually witnessed this feat.” 
t Tlie following paragraph appeared in a Colonial newspaper : — “ A curious freak of a wild Duck has been noticed in the 
M airoa district, one of those birds having built its nest in a tree, and there brought forth its brood. As is well known, these 
birds nsuallj build low; but in the instance we refer to, in a rata tree, high up on a cliff overhanging the river, the bii’.l had 
formed its nest. The position of the nest, which is inaccessible, was first noticed by the bird’s efforts to entice its young into the 
water. The Duck was seen to fly out of tho tree down towards the river, uttering a peculiar cry, and shortly afterwards the 
ducklings, six in all, fell one after another over the nest on to the river-bank, from which they scrambled into the w'ater ” 
