MASON AND LEFROY. 29f 



1600. Dafila acuta. Pintail. 



Their food is very varied, although, like most of our fowl, wild 

 rice, so long as it lasts, is their staple. But besides this, worms, 

 small shells both land and water, grass and aquatic plants, 

 bulbous roots and corn, and insects of all kinds are found in 

 their stomachs. I think that with us they must particularly affect 

 shells, because in no less than three cases out of twenty-two 

 I have noted ct stomachs almost entirely full of small fragile fresh 

 water shells," and in five others I have recorded shells as amongst 

 the food found on dissection in the gizzards. H. M. G. B. Ill, 192. 



They feed mainly at night on vegetable food chiefly but also 

 on mollusca and insects. F. I. IV, 449. 



Their food seems mainly to consist of small and fragile shell 

 fish, but they also eat a large variety of other animal matter, and 

 are also to a certain extent vegetarians. S. B. I. D. A., 184. 



1601. Querquedula circia. Garganey or Blue-winged Teal. 



' Weedy tanks are preferred by this teal. They live on the 

 tender weeds and grasses." (Theobald). Come in some parts of 

 the country in such crowds in to paddy fields as to destroy acres 

 of crop at one visit. Their food is chiefly vegetable ; tender 

 shoots and leaves of water plants, seeds and bulbs and corms, 

 and slender rhizomes of rushes, sedges and the like form the bulk 

 of their diet to which at times large quantities of rice, wild and 

 cultivated, must be added. Besides this they eat occasionally all 

 kinds of insects and their larvae, small frogs, worms, fresh-water 

 shells, and the like ; but as a rule, this forms inland in India 

 a very small proportion of their food, and no traces of anything 

 but vegetable matter have been observable in the stoirachs of 

 many I have examined. On the sea coast it is different. There 

 I found shrimps, delicate shells, and other animal substances in 

 abundance in their gizzards. H. M. G. B. Ill, 218. 



The food of this teal is chiefly vegetable. F. I. IV, 451. 

 They feed in the smaller tanks and jhils, and also in the 

 paddy fields, and on various young land-crops. . . .Their staple diet 



