BIRD ADVENTURERS 215 



had the squatty shape of the diver, but they 

 were not so small, and they had dark green 

 heads and chocolate breasts, though the green 

 was not nearly so bright as in the wild drake, 

 and there was no white collar. I soon found 

 out from books that they were of a species 

 known as Baer's white -eyed duck, and that 

 very little was known about them except 

 that they lived in the very far east of Asia ; 

 and they certainly were not known to come to 

 India. That winter I only saw eleven of them, 

 but next winter there must have been an in- 

 vasion in force, for I saw at least fifty of the 

 unfortunate captives in the market ; in fact, 

 for a few days they were quite one of the 

 commonest kinds of ducks there, and, of course, 

 where so many were caught, there must have 

 been many more that no one noticed. In 

 the following winter these unfortunate ducks 

 still came in, though they were not quite so 

 common in the market as they had been the 

 year before, but even yet no sportsman had 

 shot any, though later on they had more luck. 

 But after this the birds got scarcer, and when 

 I left India in 1902 they had ceased their 

 visits as far as one could see. 



