56 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS 



eat and thrive on the latter; they would not touch dead animal 

 food, which is curious, as mergansers make no difficulty about 

 this, though true fish-eaters. I presume they are fairly good 

 eating, as an Assam planter who shot them regularly used to 

 eat them equally so. The birds nest in holes and hollows of 

 trees, the breeding season being about May, and they moult in 

 September, retiring to the most remote swamps for safety. 

 Outside our limits this bird is found in Java, and is siid to be 

 domesticated there. 



Small Whistler or Whistling Teal. 



Dendrocycna javanica* Silli, Hindustani. 



The loud whistling call of several syllables uttered by this 

 duck will at once strike the newcomer to India as something 

 new in duck utterances ; it has evidently given the bird the 

 Hindustani name above-noted, as also the variants of Silhahi 

 and Chihee, while the Burmese rendering Si-sa-li is even 

 closer. 



The flight of the bird is as distinctive as the note; the legs, 

 unusually long for a duck, and the neck tend to droop, at any 

 rate when flying low, and the large blunt wings, which are 

 all black underneath, contrasting with the brown body, are 

 moved quickly, although the flight is not fast. The birds 

 may settle in a tree, which naturally seems an even more 

 remarkable performance than their vocal one ; and, indeed, 

 the dend7'ocycnas, which are essentially tropical ducks, are 

 often called tree-ducks as a group. The whistling, cackling 

 call^ however, which is common to both sexes, is a far more 

 distinctive peculiarity than the perching habit, common as this 

 is to most ducks resident in the tropics. No doubt crocodiles 

 and alligators have done their share in establishing this 

 custom ! 



The plumage is as alike in the two sexes in this duck as 

 the call, and this is again a group peculiarity ; in the present 

 bird there is no striking marking, but the combination of 



* arcuata on plate. 



