MASON AND LEFROY. 291 



small percentage of the wretched villager's winter crops. They 

 will eat almost any young tender green stuff, but probably prefer 

 the late rice crops to any other. S. B. I. D. A., 87. 



SUB-FAMILY. Anatince. Typical ducks, Sheldrakes, etc. 



1584. Sarcidiornis melanonotus. Comb Duck or Nukta. Go 

 to paddy fields to feed on the grain. (Theobald). Their food 

 consists chiefly of tender shoots and seeds of aquatic herbage, 

 worms, larvae of water insects, small shells, fresh water Crustacea 

 and occasionally a tiny fish or two. They do not visit, as a 

 rule, or rob our fields much in Upper India ; I have never found 

 any grain, but wild rice seed, nr their stomachs and only once or 

 twice have I seen them browsing on the turf near the water's 

 edge. ' At night they roam over the paddy stubble, and I 

 have found their stomachs full of rice during the harvest/' 

 (Tickell). H. M. G. B. I. Ill, 91-96. 



Though Hume never found any grain except wild rice in 

 the stomachs of the birds he examined, others, besides Tickell t 

 have found that cultivated rice forms one of the articles of 

 their diet. They eat all sorts of shoots, roots, seeds, etc., of 

 water plants, varying this vegetarian food with a little animal 

 stuff now and then, such as worms, spawn, larvae, and perhaps 

 an occasional fish. S. B., 9, $7, 28. 



1585. Asarcornis scutulatus. White-winged Wood-Duck. 



" My birds were practically omnivorous, but would touch no 

 dead animal food." Small fish, worms, grasshoppers, frogs, and 

 snails only eaten if alive. Paddy and husked rice, but preferred 

 animal food to grain. ' Green food of all sorts they refused 

 unless very hungry, and I could never induce them to eat any 

 sort of water weed." S. B. I. D. A., 38. Jj 



1586. Rhodonessa caryophyllacea. Pink-headed Duck. 

 v 'Shillingford) Half-digested water weeds and various kinds of 



small shells. H. M. G. B. Ill, 176. 



