184 INDIAN DUCKS 



Before cooking, however, he has to be shot, and though not, as a 

 rule, a very shy bird, yet he is quite wide-awake enough to make the 

 getting within shot of him an interesting, if not difhcult job. Where, 

 too, he has been shot at, all one's ingenuity and perseverance will be 

 required before the game-bag can be made to assume the bulgy 

 appearance it ought to have. Then, when you have got within shot, 

 the Gadwall proves a thoroughly sporting bird ; he is quick off the 

 water, rising rather straight up into the air, and getting very soon 

 well under way ; and in full flight the Gadwall is even faster than the 

 mallard, and, as many writers have observed, reminds one much 

 of teal in the manner of flying and the swish-swish of the wings as 

 the flock hurtles overhead, leaving, let us hope, two birds m response 

 to the right and left with which it has been greeted. 



When shooting in the old days over the vast jheels in Khulna 

 and Jessore, though teal might and generally did form the majority 

 of the birds got, yet we always hoped that Gadwall would, and it 

 was certainly these birds that gave us the most sport. 



In some places the jheels themselves, vast stretches of water, 

 shallow in the cold weather and much overgrov/n all I'ound their 

 borders with reeds, weeds, and lilies, were surrounded with rice-fields, 

 and through these wandered shallow water-ways, some natural and 

 others artificial!)' made either for draining or irrigation. 



Daybreak would see us making our way from one of the main 

 rivers up such a water-way, which we might have to traverse for some 

 two or three miles before reaching the piece of water which formed 

 our destination. Our boats were the light flat-bottomed kundas, or 

 canoes, used so universally all over North-eastern India ; and our seats 

 were low morahs, or cane seats, which enabled us to swing round and 

 get shots to our rear as well as in front and both sides, which a seat 

 right across the boats would have prevented. We had not, however, 

 to wait until we got to the jheel for our shooting, for snipe constantly 

 got up to our right and left and teal rose within shot in a manner far 

 beyond what we hoped for later on ; moreover, the feeding flocks 

 were scattered, and one bird down, another shot might well be hoped 

 for. Here and there, too, a Gadwall would find its way within range, 

 these only getting up from patches of rice more than usually dense 

 and thick. Less often a few pintail would flash across us, but rarely 



