28 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



head, leaving, let ug hope, two birds in response to the right and 

 left with which it has been greeted. 



Shooting in the old days over the vast j heels in Khulna and Jessore, 

 thouo-h teal might and generally did form the majority of the birds got, 

 yet we always hoped that Gadwall woiddj and it was certainly these 

 birds that gave us the most sport. 



In some places the jheels themselves, vast stretches of water, shallow 

 in the cold weather and much overgrown all round their borders with 

 weeds, reeds and lilies, were surrounded with rice-fields, and through 

 these wandered shallow waterways, some natural and others artificially 

 made either for drainage or irrigation. 



Daybreak would see us making our way from one of the main rivers 

 up such a waterway, which we might have to traverse for some two or 

 three miles before reaching the piece of water which formed our destina- 

 tion. Our boats were the light flat-bottomed kundas, or canoes, used 

 so universally all over North-Eastern India ; and our seats were low 

 momhsj or cane seats, which enabled us to swing round and get shots 

 to our rear as well as in front and both sides, which a seat right across 

 the boats would have prevented. We had not however to wait until we 

 got to the jheel for our shooting, for snipe constantly got up to our right 

 and left ; teal rose within shot in a manner far beyond what could be 

 hoped for later on ; moreover the feeding flocks were scattered, and one 

 bird down another shot might well be hoped for. Here and there too 

 a Gadwall would find its way within range, these only getting up from 

 patches of rice more than usually dense and thick. Less often a few 

 Pintails would flash across us, but rarely within shot ; also Pochards, 

 White-eyes, and Shovellers were all to be seen at intervals. Whilst 

 it was still cool, and a few wisps of gently quivering mist were 

 still lino'ering on the top of the water, loath yet to dissolve their ghostly 

 lives into nothingness, we were generally well into the jheel and had 

 scattered out into a long line. Snipe we now allowed to get up unheeded, 

 though as yet there were but few, for not until the sun rose high and hot 

 did they forsake the rice-fields and take to the deep water and the cool 

 shade of the lily leaves. Whistling Teal swarmed in all directions, and 

 kept circling round everj^where in countless myriads ; Purple Coots flus- 

 tered and fluttered across the tops of the reeds and through the rushes ; 

 the little Water-rail scurried across the surface of the water plants : 



