316 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



Davison remarks : — " This teal occurs in very large flocks on 

 some fresh water ponds situate on the north-eastern coast of 

 Trinkut Island. When disturbed from one piece of water they 

 all rise high up and keep circling over head, uttering their 

 peculiar whistling note ; after sometime they all swoop down 

 and alight together on one of the other ponds, occasionally 

 a few would separate from the main flock and settle for a few 

 minutes on the large forest trees growing round about. I do 

 not know if they are permanent residents on Trinkut; I did 

 not meet with them anywhere else." 



963 Us.— Mareca gibberifrons, Mull. (10.) 



Lord Walden says that my Mareca albogularis, Stray Fea- 

 thers, 1873, p. 303, is identical with the above-named species 

 from Celebes. I am not absolutely certain of this, because he 

 does not appear to have compared the males, because this spe- 

 cies does not appear to be found either in the Nicobars or in 

 (Sumatra, and because it is a permanent resident in the Anda- 

 mans, and it is it seems to me somewhat doubtful whether birds, 

 permanent residents in Celebes and Timor, and others permanent 

 residents in the Andamans, and yet not occurring in the inter- 

 mediate Nicobars and Sumatra, can be absolutely identical. 

 However for the present, as Lord Walden says that one Anda- 

 man female is identical with a Celebes example, I follow him 

 in recording the bird under Midler's name. Full dimensions 

 and description of this species are given, Stray Feathers, 1873, 

 he cit. 



Davison says : — ic This teal is said to have been very com- 

 mon, at one time, in the Andamans, but it is far from being 

 so now. It appears to frequent alike both salt and fresh 

 water. During the day it either perches among the mangroves, 

 or settles down in some shady spot on the bank of a stream ; 

 when wounded it does not attempt at first to dive, but swims for 

 the nearest cover in which it hides itself, but when hard pressed 

 it dives but does not remain long under water, and appears to 

 get soon exhausted. It feeds by night in the fresh water 

 ponds, and I was informed that it is to be seen during the 

 rains in small flocks in the morning and evening in the paddy 

 flats about Aberdeen. Sometimes in going up the creeks a pair 

 will slip off the bank into the water, and keep swimming 

 about 20 yards ahead of the boat, only rising when hard 

 pressed, but they are very wary when in flocks. I could learn 

 nothing about the breeding- of this species. The only note 



