[Chap. Ul, 3 



PABA.8. ;< & 4. * 



PART II. 



CHAPTER III 



Object, System and Arrangement 



,^, , , 3. A number of svjoitsmeii, at a big shoot, most 



Object ni A , ' ° 1 , . 1 



the hook. of them by no means novices, were once asked to keep, 



lor identification and preservation, some of the rarer 

 Ducks of Northern India, a nominal list being supplied 

 to them. Most of them very frankly replied that, 

 tliough they would do tlieir best to comply, they feared 

 they were not able to distinguish any but the very 

 commonest birds, especially when on the wing. If that 

 was the case with them, the tyro's difficulty must be 

 considerable. Few people it is hoped shoot for the mere 

 pleasure of killing. The sportsman's interest in his 

 shooting would accordingly be much increased if he were 

 able, without having recourse to the standard books on 

 the subject, many of them too technical as to repel 

 •the beginner, to spot what it is that he has shot and to 

 discover something about its habits in general. The 

 ordinary man probably depends on little beyond colour, 

 size and a very few salient features of shape, etc., for his 

 identifications, and, if he turns to the illustrated books, 

 he gets a picture, often admirable, of the bird in repose 

 along with a highly technical feather-to-feather descrip- 

 tion of the plumage. That is all right if he has the 

 dead bird in his hand, but one does not always want to 

 kill in order to be able to identify, and it is for every 

 reason nicer to be able to recognise your bird before, 

 rather than after, you have fired at him. 



The present little book, then, has two objects, one to 

 acquaint the practical sportsman with the commoner 

 Duck that will be met with on a large sheet of water in 

 Upper India in circumstances mainly in which the 

 liirds come to the gun, and the other, by drawing atten- 

 tion to some of their essential habits and by citing a 

 few simple commonsense rules of shooting, to assist 

 him to hit them. 

 System and 4. The system and arrangement of the book calls for 



arrangement g^^^^ explanation. Instead of taking each bird and 

 of the book. ... ■ i -• i. it, • 



o-ivmg, in a more or less exhaustive account, everything 



material that is known about it, the plan usually adopted 

 in the bird books, certain subjects or topics have been 

 selected, e. g., Peculiarities of Appearance, Size, Coloura- 

 tion from Below, Flight, Behaviour under P'ire, etc., 

 in the light of which all the species are to be brought 

 under a common review. These topics cover Chapters V 



