but they are almost extinct now; and during
four years' residence in very sequestered regions I only saw one. Wild
ducks abound on some of the rivers, but they are becoming fewer and
shyer every year. The beautiful Paradise duck is gradually retreating to
those inland lakes lying at the foot of the Southern Alps, amid glaciers
and boulders which serve as a barrier to keep back his ruthless foe.
Even the heron, once so plentiful on the lowland rivers, is now seldom
seen. As I write these lines a remorseful recollection comes back upon
me of overhanging cliffs, and of a bend in a swirling river, on
whose rapid current a beautiful wounded heron--its right wing
shattered--drifts helplessly round and round with the eddying water,
each circle bringing it nearer in-shore to our feet. I can see now its
bright fearless eye, full of suffering, but yet unconquered: its slender
neck proudly arched, and bearing up the small graceful head with its
coronal or top-knot raised in defiance, as if to protest to the last
against the cruel shot which had just been fired. I was but a spectator,
having merely wandered that far to look at my eel-lines, yet I felt as
guilty as though my hand had pulled the trigger. Just as the noble bird
drifted to our feet,--for I could not help going down to the river's
edge, where Pepper (our head shepherd) stood, looking very contrite,--it
reared itself half out of the water, with a hissing noise and
threatening bill, resolved to sell its liberty as dearly as it could;
but the effort only spread a brighter shade of crimson on the waters
surface for a brief moment, and then, with glazing eye and drooping
crest, the dying creature turned over on its side and was borne helpless
to our feet. By the time Pepper extended his arm and drew it in, with
the quaint apology, "I'm sorry I shot yer, old feller! I, am, indeed,"
the heron was dead; and that happened to be the only one I ever came
across during my mountain life. Once I saw some beautiful red-shanks
flying down the gorge of the Selwyn, and F---- nearly broke his neck in
climbing the crag from whence one of them rose in alarm at the noise
of our horses' feet on the shingle. There were three eggs in the
inaccessible cliff-nest, and he brought me one, which I tried in vain to
hatch under a sitting duck. Betty would not admit the intruder among her
own eggs, but resolutely pushed it out of her nest twenty times a day,
until at last I was obliged to blow it and se