286 INDIAN DUCKS 



" Very rarely seen in the Himalayas, the Tutted Pochard is some- 

 what thinly distrihuted in tR'e cold season in the Punjab and the 

 Doab, is scarce in Rajpootana, more common in Eohilkhand and 

 Oudh, and less so in the Central Provinces and Bundelkhand. 



In Sind it is not very abundant ; in Cutch more ; in Kathiawar 

 and Gujerat, in the Central Indian agency, Khandesh, and tlie Deccan 

 fairly common. 



" In Bengal, Cis-Brahmapootra, it has Ijeen noted from many 

 districts, but I believe it to be rather scarce there, though my infor- 

 mation on the subject is scant. Damant records it, and some of 

 Godwin-Austen's people procured it from Manipur ; but I have no 

 information of its occurrence east of Brahmapootra, whether in 

 Assam, Cachar, Sylhet, Tipperah, Chittagong, or any portion of 

 British Burma ; I do not doubt that it straggles into many of these, 

 but the fact has yet to be ascertained. 



" It occurs in places in very large flocks in Chota Nagpur, the 

 Northern Circars, and the Nizam's dominions, straggling by the v?ay 

 at times into Southern Konkan. It has been shot at Bellary, and 

 certainly, though rare there, visits Mysore ; but south of this I have 

 heard of it nowhere in the Peninsula, except in the north of the 

 Coimbatore district, nor has it yet been recorded from Ceylon. Here, 

 too, however, our information is very imperfect, and stragglers will 

 probably turn up in many districts where the species has not yet 

 been noticed." 



Then in a footnote he says : — 



" This species has not been recorded from Kashmir." 



In 1906, however, in the 'Asian,' in the same bag as that to which 

 I referred in a previous chapter as having been obtained by A. B. W. 

 in Kashmir, two Tufted Ducks are recorded as having formed part of 

 the bag. There can be little doubt that it occurs constantly, but not 

 in large numbers, in that State. It is not common, but at the same 

 time may be met with fairly regularly, throughout Assam, Cachar, 

 Sylhet, and Chittagong ; Mr. E. S. Routh, Superintendent of the Hill 

 Section of the A.-B. Ry., shot two fine specimens on '2Ist November, 

 1898, on a large tank in the station of Haflong, North Cachar ; and I 

 have an immature male in my collection, shot by one of my men in 

 Cachar, as well as two young females. I have it recorded from Sylhet, 

 and it is the most common of all the pochards in Lakhimpur. It was 

 plentiful at Dimagi and Sissi, and I saw it in all the rivers,the Suban- 

 rika and smaller streams, about Patalipam and North Lakhim)nir, its 



