MASON AND LEPROY. 293 



They are very carnivorous and will take almost anything they 

 can get, including fish, flesh, and all kinds of grain, water-weeds, 

 seed, and growing crops, in which they are sometimes found 

 grazing like Geese. There can be little doubt also that they 

 sometimes fall so low as to take ofial. S. B. I. D. A., 130. 



It feeds partly on grass or crops like Geese, partly on molluscs 

 and Crustacea. F. I. IV, 429. 



Grazes on corn and grass like a Goose. E. B. C. N. H., 129. 



Feeds often on grain inland in large flocks. Punjab Gaz., 

 Ludhiana, 15. 



Dendrocycna. In winter the flocks cause great damage to 

 corn or rice near the lagoons, and other waters they frequent. 

 E. B. C. N. H., 130. 



1589. Dendrocycna javanica. Whistling Teal. 



Feeding like Geese on short fine grass, and Mr. Cripps says 

 " This species is often seen on freshly ploughed paddy fields, 

 evidently feeding on the grains of paddy that have been left above 

 ground after sowing." They are chiefly, I think, vegetarians, and 

 devour rice especially, wild and cultivated, most greedily, but 

 they also feed on all kinds of seeds, rushes and other water 

 plants, the herbage, bulbs and corns of these and on grass, and 

 at times small shells, worms and a variety of insects are found 

 in their stomachs. Once I shot one that disgorged as it fell, a 

 tiny silvery fish about two inches in length. But as a general 

 rule (and I have dissected many), they feed principally, I believe, 

 on vegetable substances. H. M. G. B. Ill, 111-112. 



They feed on anything and everything, but bring up their 

 young principally on animal food, and they themselves, in the 

 adult state, probably prefer vegetable food. They graze often in 

 the rice-fields, but only when the plant is very young, and I have 

 seen them grazing on the coarse dhub-grass which often grows on 

 sandy spots at the edges of tanks and jhils in the cold weather. 

 I have found that they eat large quantities of a very small fresh- 

 water snail. S. B. I. D. A., 103. 



