498 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV 111. 



When eating, this bird utters a very subdued, soft whistle, repeated at each 

 peck, much like the " it " of its usual cry, but much softer and lower. The 

 whistle is louder and more excited when the bird is pecking at an insect it 

 relishes, such as a toothsome green caterpillar (rescued from a living death 

 in a wasp's mud nest). 



I should very much like to know the note of the male bird, and, being such 

 a pretty little bird, it would make an excellent pet.: 



I hope the above brief notes will be of some interest. A knowledge of the 

 bird's cry should certainly help those who have the opportunity of visiting its 

 habitat in obtaining more specimens of this rare bird, I have sent the speci- 

 men described here to Mr. Ogilvie Grant, of the British Museum. 



F. POWELL CONNOR, Captain, 



I.M.S., 1.R.C.8, 



Medical College, 

 Calcutta, \2th August 1907. 



No. XIII— A NOTE ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE BURMESE 

 GREY DUCK OR SPOT-BILL (POLIONETTA 

 HARINGTONI, OATES). 



On page 558, Vol. XVII, of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History 

 Society, Mr. E. W. Oates described a new species of grey duck from Upper 

 Burma, to which he gave the above title. 



For the convenience of those readers who have not the above quoted 

 number at hand I give Mr. Oates' description below : — 



" Similar to P. pcbcilorhyncha, the Spot-bill or Grey Duck of India, but 

 constantly wanting the orange coloured patches which adorn the base of the 

 upper mandible of that species. The bill is, moreover, much smaller, 

 measuring two inches from the point of the forehead to the tip of the nail, 

 against two and a quarter inches in P.pcccilorhynchay 



On page 437, Vol. IV, of the " Fauna of British India," Birds, Blanford 

 gives the length of the bill as 2*5. Oates gives the distribution of the new 

 species as " the valley of the Irrawaddy river and the Shan States " and adds 

 Toungoo, Tandawgyi on the Pegu river, and Thatone as probable localities, 

 Major Evans having shot grey duck there. In November 1902, 1 obtained some 

 grey duck in the Meiktila district, near Thazi on the Rangoon-Maudalay 

 railway. I noticed at the time that these duck had the patches at the base of 

 the bill black and not orange, my attention being drawn to the fact owing to 

 my having recently seen a plate of P . pcecilorhyncha, showing the orange 

 patches. At that time, however, I had not commenced studying the Burmese 

 birds, and assumed that the orange colour was put on in the breeding season. 

 In the cold weather of 1905-06, 1 did a good deal of duck shooting in the Upper 

 Chindwin, above Kindat. About a dozen grey duck were killed, all but one 

 having black patches at the base of the mandible : the one exception, killed 

 about February 15th, 1906, had these patches pure orange. 



