50 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



for a duck, pointed wings with pinion-qiiills edged with silver- 

 grey and tipped with steel-blue, and a very small beak and large 

 eyes. The upper-parts have no markings of any sort, and the 

 abdomen is pure white, but the breast and sides are mottled 

 with brown and buff. The head is greyish and crested, the male 

 having more grey tint and less crest than the female, which also 

 has a narrow white ring round the eyes. The male's feet are 

 orange, the female's olive. 



In full plumage the drake is well known to everyone who 

 takes any interest in waterfowl ; the orange-chestnut fans in his 

 wings are unique, and one of these feathers would be enough as 

 a record of the species ; he also has an orange ruff of hackles, 

 and an enormous crest of copper, green, and white, besides 

 showing many other sharply contrasted colours in his plumage, 

 and possessing a bill of the brightest pink-red or cerise. This 

 duck is well known in captivity in India as well as in Europe, 

 being exported from China. Here it breeds, as also in Japan 

 and Amoorland ; it nests in holes in trees, and spends much 

 time in them, being a thorough wood-duck and a regular 

 percher. The notes of the sexes are quaint; the drake snorts 

 and the duck sneezes ! 



The mandarin is quick and active in its movements in 

 walking, swimming, and flying ; and, although feeding much on 

 land, where it often grazes like a wigeon, or searches for acorns 

 in woods, it nevertheless dives for food occasionally, and is more 

 active under water than almost any surface duck. It is poor 

 eating, and not a bird to shoot more specimens of than can be 

 avoided, owing to its beauty and interesting habits. 



It only goes in small flocks and does not seem to be an 

 object of sport anywhere. 



Ruddy Sheldrake. 



Casarca rutila. Chakioa, Hindustani. 



This showy spoil-sport, so conspicuous in its foxy-red 

 plumage on laud or water, and, if anything, more striking in 

 flight, with its broad slowly -beating black-and-white wings 

 making it tri-coloured, is a bird that cannot be overlooked where 



