320 WILDFOWL IN UPPER INDIA. 



birds are mostly night feeders, and as soon as the 

 sun goes down, and the darkness has fallen, they 

 fly off to their nocturnal feeding grounds and 

 scatter themselves all over the country, visiting the 

 fields and gardens and even when all is still, the farm 

 yards and stack yards of farmers, in their quest of 

 food. 



A thickly-populated country is therefore evidently 

 by no means inconsistent with the concurrent presence 

 of large numbers of aquatic wildfowl, so long as either 

 protected waters exist, or that there are unprotected 

 sheets of sufficient size to enable the fowl to find a 

 secure haven of refuge upon their broad surfaces. This 

 is well illustrated in India and China where, notwith- 

 standing a very dense population, the waters are at 

 certain seasons the haunt of myriads of wildfowl. In 

 India for instance, the surfaces of the "jheels" and 

 tanks are often covered by enormous numbers of these 

 birds thus Captain Baldwin states that 



" Indians who have visited certain parts of Upper-India 

 will bear me out, when I say that the countless thousands 

 (of wildfowl) that visit the country in the cold season, driven 

 south by hard weather from other latitudes, can hardly be 

 surpassed in numbers or variety, in any part of the world. 

 All over the country there are jheels and tanks where wild- 

 fowl congregate in dense clouds. Who can forget, when the 

 first shot was fired, the tremendous roar caused by the wings 

 of the rising thousands." * 



So also in China, probably the most populous of all 

 countries, but one where many extensive sheets of 

 water exist. The innumerable companies of wildfowl 



* The Large and Small Game of Bengal and the N. West Provinces* 

 by Capt. J. H. Baldwin, p. 337. 



