174 INDIAN DUCKS 



Distribution. — The strict habitat of this little duck is Eastern 

 Asia, whence it ranges occasionally"west, sometimes entering Eastern 

 Europe. It breeds throughout Eastern Siberia, and lately 1 have 

 received notes of its breeding from Manchuria. In the winter it 

 descends south, and is common in China and Japan, and of very rare 

 occurrence within our limits. Seebohm says (' Birds of the Japanese 

 Empire ') : — 



" The Falcated Teal is a winter visitor to all the Japanese islands. 

 Tiie Perry Expedition found it to be one of the most abundant of 

 the water-birds of Japan, and noticed it at various points during the 

 voyage." 



In India, until quite recently, few specimens have been obtained 

 since Hume's time, more probably owing to no notice being taken 

 of them than for any other reason — although their occurrence is, of 

 course, rather rare. Hume notes five specimens which came into 

 his possession : of these, two were caught by fowlers near Lucknow, 

 and given to him by Dr. Bonavia ; Major C. H. T. Marshall shot a 

 male at Knrnal, seventy miles north of Delhi, in February ; another 

 was shot in the same month about thirty miles from Delhi by 

 Mr. W. M. Chill ; and the fifth was obtained liy Hume himself in 

 the Calcutta Bazaar, and this he says was caught in the immediate 

 vicinity. 



Shortly after this General McLeod recorded that he had shot a 

 female at Fero/a, Bhawalpur, in December, 1879 ; and G. Reid, in 

 the same volume of ' Stray Feathers ' as that in which this record is 

 made, states : — 



"Two years ago I myself saw two or three in possession of a 

 native fowler, who would not part with tliem except at a fancy ]irice, 

 saying he meant to take them with a lot of others he had to the 

 ex-king of Oudh, who would pay him handsomely." 



He does not say whether the " lot of others " were of the same 

 species ; presumably not. 



Two young males, one without the sickle-shaped secondaries and 

 one with these fully developed, were obtained by Mr. Finn in the 

 Calcutta Bazaar ; a specimen has been shot in Purneah ; two 

 specimens — an adult male and a young bird of the same sex — are 

 in the Lucknow Museum, and were, I believe, obtained near that 



