272 Mr. Y. B. Sirason on 



they feed on turtles^ small crocodiles^ and dead animals 

 which come floating near the trees. 



Scattered among these plains are pools of deep water, 

 extending over areas of from ten to forty acres^ abounding 

 in wild fowl and crocodiles^ surrounded by very high grass 

 with stalks like thin bamboo. A few stumpy trees, hidgels 

 and others, grow in this grass, the pools are covered with 

 beautiful lotus plants, and here the Pink-headed Duck re- 

 sorts at all seasons of the year. 



I believe I met with this Duck long ago, about 1849, but 

 at that time I took no notes. Those were the days when 

 many would-be ornithologists could get no books to study. 

 Jerdon and Hume were unknown. Esacus I'ecrirvrrostris was 

 called by many of us the Goggle-eyed Plover, and Pericro- 

 cotus speciosus the Flame-coloured Shrike. Yet we sought 

 rare and beautiful birds keenly and obtained them more 

 easily when youth was vigorous, official work lighter, and 

 examinations unknown, than now. In 1862, and for some 

 time afterwards, I made this bird a subject of careful 

 observation. 



One morning in May, very early, I was standing, almost 

 without clothes, at the door of a travelling bungalow on the 

 trunk-road in Purneah, watching two Florikens with a bino- 

 cular as they wheeled about in the sky, when about a dozen 

 dark Ducks, with lovely, rosy, light-coloured feathers under 

 their wings, alighted in a tank close by. I immediately got 

 my gun, and fortunately was able to get close and bag two. 

 After this I was always on the look out and shot numbers 

 of them before I left that part of Bengal. 



Dr. Jerdon visited me while I was stationed at Purneah, and 

 told me he had never seen the bird alive, and that the picture 

 in liis illustrations was drawn from a dried skin. I promised 

 to show him and get him some specimens, and I did so in 

 this wise. We were both at a shooting-party given by that 

 hospitable planter and owner of Kolassy, so well known and 

 liked in Pvirneah, and were shooting with a long line of 

 elephants, looking for that wonderful tiger which is always 

 there w)\en no one has a gun or wants him, and always 



