SAROIDIOBNIS MELANOTA 37 



reed-margined broads, not bare-edged pieces of water like the 

 Sambhur Lake, and is comparatively rarely met with on our large 

 rivers. I have shot them alike on the Ganges and the Jumna in the 

 cold season, but it is far more common to find them in jhils and 

 bhils. I have never found it in hilly ground, and very rarely in small 

 ponds." (The italics are mine.) "Just when the rain sets in they 

 seem to be on the wing at all hours of the day, and almost wherever 

 you go in the North-west Provinces you see them moving about, 

 always in pairs, the male as a rule in front. They never, as far as 

 I have observed, associate in flocks. There may be half-a-dozen 

 pairs about a broad in the rains, or half-a-dozen families, each 

 consisting of two old and four to ten young birds, during the early 

 part of the cold season ; but I have never seen them congregate in 

 flocks as most geese and so many of the ducks do." 



Gates {vide 'Birds of British Burma') seems to have found them 

 in much the same kind of places, and also in paddy-fields ; but he 

 says that in Burma they are found " singly, in pairs, or in small flocks 

 of twenty or thirty individuals." Jerdon, on the other hand, says that, 

 although they are generally found only in small parties of four to ten 

 individuals, yet they are sometimes found in flocks numbering over 

 100. This I should imagine is most unusual, and we may take it for 

 granted that, as a rule, they go in pairs only, except when they have 

 a family, and that occasionally two or more families join forces ; and 

 again, when the breeding- season is over, the young are often to be 

 found singly, the old birds alone continuing to keep in pairs. Mr. 

 Young found them in flocks in both the N.W.P. and in the Panch 

 Mahals, but adds, " they seem to keep their pairs even in the flock, 

 for when one has been shot, and the flock has flown away, I have 

 observed one remain behind and flying round, searching for its mate." 



The general consensus of opinion appears to be that they are not 

 very wary birds, and in consequence are not hard to bring to bag. 

 Of course, as Hume says, you cannot walk up to them and pot them 

 as they swim about unconcernedly on the water ; but with compara- 

 tively little trouble and care one ought always to succeed in getting 

 near enough for a shot, unless the country surrounding them is 

 utterly bare and destitute of cover for the sportsman. Once 

 disturbed, their flight, etc., is variously described. Hume says : 

 " Their flight is powerful and fairly rapid, and they are all round 

 quicker, more active birds than geese, both on the wing and in the 



