NETTOPUS COROMANDELIANUS 63 



by night they pole silently up the lake towards the nets, driving the 

 flocks of duck and teal silently before them, nor is any noise raised 

 until an approach has been made to within some 100 yards or even 

 less of the nets. Thus when the shouts are started many of the 

 flocks have not had time to rise high enough to evade the nets, into 

 which they fly and are entangled. Cotton-Teal, of course, fly low 

 along the surface of the water, and hence fall victims to the nets 

 more easily than such ducks as get quickly into the air and fly high. 

 On the Moolna bhil I am sure forty or fifty couple might be shot 

 in a day by a single gun without any very great trouble or luck ; 

 but in Bengal very few sportsmen, except such as shoot for quantity 

 alone, consider them game, and Cotton-Teal are left alone, unless 

 required as food for servants, boatmen, or coolies, who like their 

 flesh and eat it greedily, preferring them to more delicately-flavoured 

 ducks. They breed in great numbers in these vast sheets of water 

 on the little islands which are dotted about in all directions, and 

 which contain from three to four up to 100 trees or so. Nor are 

 they much molested when breeding, though now and then the 

 miserable fishermen, who are the only inhabitants of these watery, 

 fever-stricken parts, may take a clutch or two of eggs as food. 



In different parts of India their habits also vary very much. 

 Hume writes : — 



" Tame and familiar little birds, village ponds, at any rate where 

 singhara are grown, seem to be just as much affected as more 

 secluded pieces of water. You may often see half-a-dozen dabbling 

 about in the water and weeds within ten yards of the spot where 

 the village washerman is noisily thrashing the clothes of the 

 community, more stio, on large stones or ribbed pieces of wood, as 

 it his one object in life was to knock everything into rags at the 

 earliest possible moment. Even the loud half grunt, half groan, 

 with which he relieves his feelings after each mighty thwack has no 

 terror for these little birds." 



The habitat of these remarkably domesticated Cotton-Teal is not 

 mentioned by Hume ; but in Rungpore, though not quite so tame 

 as the above description shows them to be in some places, they take 

 little notice of passers-by unless very closely approached. They 

 squat in the roadside ditches and tanks, and, when finally leaving 

 them, scuttle away, chattering and clucking for all they are worth, 



