INDIA N D UCKS A ND THEIR A LLIES. 15 



slowness at first. It is perhaps an easier bird than most of its size 

 and weight to bring down when hit owing to its phimage being rather 

 less dense than that of many other ducks. Even when brought down, 

 however, it is not necessarily brought to bag at once, as it is a most 

 expert diver and is one of the ducks which dive and grasp the weeds 

 under the water, and so keep hidden below the surface : more often 

 though they rise, but only high enough to allow of the tip of the bill 

 protruding. Hume, Butler, and others have recovered birds quite dead, 

 drowned through holding on to the weeds a little too long below the 

 water. If winged so as to render diving either painful or impossible 

 (a twisted wing prevents most ducks from diving), it will make for 

 the nearest cover ; and Woods informs me that he has found that the 

 majority of those he has wounded without killing outright have taken 

 this means of trying to avoid capture ; at the same time he adds that 

 they both dive and swim well. 



Most writers agree that the voice of the Spotted-bill and of the 

 Mallard are very much alike ; but Hume considers that the quack of the 

 former is the more sonorous. I cannot say that I have noticed any 

 difference between the two. 



They are not shy birds, and can generally be approached near enough 

 for a shot fairly easily. 



They are principally vegetable feeders, and do a good deal of damage to 

 rice, both when young and when in the ear, trampling down a great deal 

 more than they eat ; they also at times eat all sorts of miscellaneous 

 food, such as water mollusca, frogs, worms, insects, etc. Woods 

 observes that the places where they feed can generally be detected at 

 a glance from the state of the much-trampled blades of rice and 

 the numerous feathers l}ing about. He says that he has had good sport 

 by concealing himself in such places on bright moonlight nights and 

 shooting the birds as they fly over. He has also been successful in 

 getting capital sport with them over a decoy. The Mussalman Mani- 

 puris catch numbers of the flappers with spears and nets; and they 

 sometimes form part of the bag when the natives in other parts of India 

 have a duck drive into nets. 



In Southern India (Mysore ?) Mr. Theobald says that the shikaris get 

 within easy shot of these ducks by making bundles of rushes and weeds 

 and pushing these along the surface of the water in front of them, the 



