GADWALL 7 



associate with other surface-feeding ducks ; they are wild, like 

 ducks in Lakhimpur generally. 



The eggs have been taken in Dibrugarh and the Shan States, 

 and are like spotted-bills' eggs, but run smaller. The best 

 known haunts of this bird are from eastern Mongolia east and 

 through China and Japan to the Kuriles ; no doubt in the 

 northern part of its range it is migratory, and it would appear to 

 have a longer wing than our resident Indian spotted-biU. 



Gad^vall. 



* Chaulelasmus streperus. Mila, Hindustani. 



Not at all a familiar bird at home, the gadwall is, in the East, 

 the most abundant of all the larger winter ducks, and holds 

 much the same place in shooting in most districts as mallard in 

 the west. The female is very like the female mallard, having 

 a similar mottled-brown plumage, but the bar on the wing is 

 all white and there is generally a little chestnut in front of it. 

 The drake is a very poor creature compared to the splendid 

 mallard drake ; his head is of a dull speckly brown and the 

 pencilled grey of his body is dark and dull in tone, the only 

 striking note of colour being the velvet-black stern. The white 

 wing-bar is preceded by a patch of reddish-chocolate. 



Plain as his plumage is, the gadwall drake yet changes it for 

 female dress, like the mallard, in the summer ; indeed he goes 

 further and changes his black bill for the orange-edged one of 

 the female, but the distinct chocolate patch on the wing remains 

 to distinguish him. Young males have less of this. 



Gadwall are finer-boned and more delicately framed ducks 

 than mallards, and are not quite so large, although they have 

 a plump appearance ; the drake seldom weighs over two pounds, 

 and the duck does not reach that weight, and may be as little as 

 one ; they are generally in good condition, even when recently 

 arrived, at which time ducks are apt to be poor after their 

 exertions in the long flight. 



Although they penetrate to most parts of the Empire, they 



* Anas on plate. 



