The Wood-Ducks. 143 



have the smallest effect on them. These 

 two birds flew just like geese, one bird 

 (the male, I suppose, for he looked much 

 the heavier) about ten yards in front of 

 the other, their necks fully outstretched 

 and squawking loudly as they flew for 

 the first few hundred yards. Whilst in 

 the open they flew within a few feet of 

 the ground, but, on regaining the forest, 

 mounted higher until they disappeared 

 altogether in the distance." 



Mr. Baker also met with these Ducks 

 in Cachar. He remarks : — " The only 

 experience I have had personally with 

 them in this district was on a rainy day 

 in June : when out shooting I heard two 

 birds calling to one another in loud goose- 

 Hke calls. The forest was very dense, 

 and consisted almost entirely of trees, 

 but through it there wandered a sluggish, 

 dirty stream, which here and there dis- 

 appeared into smaU morasses dotted with 

 tiny pools of clear water. Thinking the 

 safest way to get a shot would be to drive 

 them, I sent my Cachari tracker to beat 

 down the stream towards me from a point 

 some two hundred yards or so above 

 where we heard them calling. The drive 

 proved a total failure, as though the birds 

 flew within thirty or forty yards of me 



