8'2 INDIAN DUCKS 



regular attempts to shoot them, I have ioimd them just as wary in 

 the middle of the day as at any oiher time, and no amount of care 

 or precautions has enabled me to approach within shot, except in 

 exceptional cases. We did, however, sometimes get within shot of 

 them in the early morning, when the mist was still heavy on the 

 water, and the conversational " gag, gag, gag, gag "' of the geese was 

 our only guide to their whereabouts, until we got well within shooting 

 distance. Even then it was always necessary to shoot directly the 

 mist rose, or we were near enough to make out their shadowy forms. 

 Earely, good bags were made by enthusiastic sportsmen who dug 

 holes in the sand, on some sandbank in the line of flight, and having 

 got into these, waited for them an hour or so before dawn. 



They are not much of a hand at diving, and give more trouble 

 when wounded by struggling along out of shot. Of course they do 

 dive, and pretty quickly, when hard-pressed, but they cannot stay 

 under water for any length of time, nor do they ever hold on to 

 weeds below the surface of the water, as do many ducks, and so 

 avoid the sportsman. They soon rise after diving, and seldom far 

 from where they entered the water, so that they can be easily shot 

 on appearing. Hume says that he has seen one goose taken off by a 

 crocodile ; but if he had shot more on the tidal waters on the Bengal 

 side, where the snub-nosed man-eating brute has his abode, I am 

 sure he would have seen many a fat goose and delicate duck disappear 

 down their wide maws. Any big bird not recovered almost as soon 

 as shot is just as likely to form a mugger's dinner as it is to form that 

 of the person shooting it. x\lthough bad or rather indifferent divers, 

 they are very good swimmers, and a broken-winged bird gets along 

 the surface of the water with great rapidity. On the wing they are 

 very swift when once started, and are active and graceful as well. 

 They fly, as everyone knows, in the form of a "V ", generally one 

 with a very obtuse point, and often with one wing of tlie "V " more 

 drawn out than the other. They are noisy birds, and their cacklings 

 and cries and trumpets are, on ordinary occasions, far from soul- 

 stirring, but, when on the wing, high up, the loud trumpeting calls 

 are very sonorous and musical. Especially is this the case when, 

 late in the evening, or in the very early dawn, the spoitsman, crouched 

 low in some ambush, waits eagerly for the welcome sound that tells 



