The Marbled Ducks. 275 



in the north-western parts of India during 

 the summer. 



The Marbled Duck does not appear to 

 be anywhere so common in the winter as 

 it is in Sind, and to Mr. Hume we are 

 indebted for nearly all we know regarding 

 its ordinary winter habits. 



He thus records his experiences of this 

 Duck: "In Sindh, where I had abundant 

 opportunities of observing it, I found it 

 invariably associated in large parties ; its 

 favourite haunts are broads thickly grown 

 with rush, in which it feeds and sports, 

 comparatively seldom showing itself in 

 the open water. As a rule it does not 

 at once rise when guns are fired, as the 

 other Ducks do, but, if at the outside 

 of the rush, scuttles into these for con- 

 cealment, as a Coot would do, and if 

 in them already, remains there perfectly 

 quiet until the boats push within sixty or 

 seventy yards of it ; then it rises, generally 

 one at a time, and even though fired at, 

 not unfrequently again drops into the 

 rush within a couple of hundred yards. 

 When there has been a good deal of 

 shooting on a lake, and almost all the 

 other ducks, and with them, of course, 

 some of these, are circling round and 

 round high in the air, you still keep, as 



