326 INDIAN DUCKS 



All this time parties of birds, small and large, had Ijeeu passing down 

 the river, but none had come wTthin shot of the boat, the excited 

 and gesticulating boatmen warning them off. Our bird gathered, 

 the sun was now high and flighting had ceased, so we turned onr 

 attention to the flocks which were sunning themselves on the 

 banks or playing in the streams or backwaters. The latter, however, 

 we soon found to be quite unapproachable, and gave them up in 

 order to try those on the banks. 



These we were more successful with, as I found that with care 

 I could stalk them whilst their attention was taken up with the boat. 

 My first two attempts were failures, and I obtained no shot ; but the 

 third time a crawl on my stomach of over 200 yards on the sand 

 brought me within about forty yards, and as the flock of some 

 thirty birds rose, 1 let drive both barrels and dropped seven of them. 

 Of these, two at once rose again and joined the others, one lay 

 kicking on the sand, and the four others were diving in all directions. 

 Then ensued the same kind of chase that I had had after my first 

 bird ; but there were now four birds in the water, two going up- 

 stream, and two down, and an hour's hard work resulted in only one 

 capture, the other birds very probably leaving the water for the 

 banks, or hiding under the banks themselves. 



Further stalks and further chases enabled me to bring the con- 

 tents of my actual bag up to seven, but, to my regret, no less than 

 half-a-dozen of my wounded birds managed to escape us altogether. 

 They took far more hitting to bring down than most birds ; and as 

 shots withm fifty yards were exceptional, it was not often they were 

 brought down stone-dead, and as long as they had a kick left in them 

 they kept the boatmen hard at work. 



One bird, a female, kept us employed for over half-an-hour with- 

 out once letting the boat near enough for a shot, and then suddenly 

 appeared floating belly upwards on the water, having died during 

 one of her dives. 



They swam under water almost as fast as the boat — a light 

 dug-out with two boatmen — could be propelled, and as a rule they 

 showed up in the water after each dive nearly as far off as before, 

 until they had been chased for some minutes, when their dives began 

 to shorten. 



