INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 13 



into Cliinu. In tlio Cromwell Road Museum there is a specimen said to 

 have been collected by Mr. J. R. Reeves in China ; but I see Salvador! 

 considers the locality as doubtful. 



Like all our local ducks, though not strictly migratory in the true 

 sense of the word, yet they wander about a good deal under the influence 

 of the weather and the want or otherwise of water. Thus in the drier 

 portions of its habitat it is only a rainy-weather visitant, appearing only 

 when the jheels and ponds contain sufl&cient water to satisfy its wants. 

 In certain parts also, quite independently of the water-supply, this duck 

 is nuich more common than in others ; thus all round the 24- 

 Parganas, Nadia, Khulna, Jessore, and the Sunderbunds generally it 

 is decidedly rare, but gets more coimnon as one works further north or 

 west. It is even more rare in the extreme north and north-east, 

 but common all over Central India, getting more rare again towards 

 the south. 



In Ceylon itself it does not seem at all rare, for though Legge never 

 met with it, he writes of others having done so not infrequently. Ho 

 seeins, however, to believe it to be only a winter visitant, but it will very 

 likely be found eventually to be a resident. 



In Manipur it is very common. Surgeon -Captain Woods says {in 

 epistola) ; '' This (the Spotted-billed Duck) is a very common duck in 

 Manipur, though in the rains and in the nesting season, owing to the 

 dense grassy jheels to which it resorts, it is seldom seen." 



Hume seems to think that it never ascends the hills to any height ; but 

 it is found in Manipur up to 3,000 feet. Mr. Woods records it from the 

 Tankul hills at heights over 3,000 feet. I have seen stragglers hero in 

 valleys up to about the same height ; and it has been recorded from the 

 Darjeeling Terai up to about 4,000 feet. 



The Spotted-billed Duck is not a sociable bird, either with its own kind 

 or with other species of duck ; often it is found singly or in pairs, and 

 the flocks seldom number much over a dozen, though in rai"e instances 

 they run up to as much as forty. Indeed Major MacMroy, as quoted 

 by Hume, had frequently observed flocks of at least a hundred, and 

 these he had seen both on the wing and at rest. 



If they ever have to associate with other ducks, Hume says that they 

 give the preference to teal or Shovellers ; and Woods writes to me : " 1 

 have often seen an old solitary Spotted 'bill piloting a flock of teal across a 



