INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 245 



colour of the upper back, the feathers of which, in the female, are darker 

 and very conspicuously bordered with reddish-buff. " (Hume). 



Roughly speaking, the habitat of the Clucking Teal may be said 

 to be the Eastern portion of Asia, south of the 70th degree, north 

 latitude, and east of longitude 80°. To the south its boundary 

 may be taken as the 20th degree latitude. It is extremely common 

 in many parts of Southern China, Central East China, Formosa and 

 the South of Japan in the winter, but it has at no time been reported 

 from Yezzo, or elsewhere to the North of Japan. The extreme North 

 of China, Mongolia, Manchuria, and perhaps Corea, it seems only to 

 visit on migration, its summer home being Northern Asiatic Russia and 

 Siberia. 



Salvador! says that it straggles into the " Western Palsearctic region 

 (Italy and France)," and again in Latham's " General Synopsis of Birds" 

 (1780), I find the following under the -heading of Anas glochans : — 

 '' Taken in a decoy in England. Has also been met with along the 

 Lena and about the lake Baikal. Has a singular note somewhat 

 like clucking." 



Within Indian limits its occurrence has been of the rarest and can 

 bo counted on one's fingers. Blyth got a male in the Calcutta bazjuir. 

 Col. McMaster says that he believed that he got what was a specimen 

 of this species in the Upper Ciicars. Mr. E. James had a painting of 

 the head of a teal, said to have been shot in Sind, which was undoubt- 

 edly — the painting — that of this species. In November, 1879, Mr. 

 Chill got a male Clucking Teal about 30 miles south of Delhi ; this he 

 preserved and sent to Hume. Thus up to Hume's time the records of 

 its actual occurrence are but two in number and of its possible occur- 

 rence two more. 



On 16th December, 1898, Mr. E. L. Barton, of Bombay, shot a 

 male Clucking Teal about 20 miles from Ahmedabad, in Guzerat. 



Information of this duck's habits is meagre in the extreme, and I 

 can find practically nothing of interest. 



Its flight is said to be swift and teal-like, but instead of, like the 

 Common Teal, flying at great heights when on migration, they fly 

 low and close to the surface of the country. This habit of flight, how- 

 ever, is probably only a distinctive feature as the Clucking Teal ap- 

 proach their destination, for Prejevalsky writes : '' When migrating 



