Confrihitions to the Ornithology of India, Sj-c. 99 



tiori^ and after an hour's search found it in a side-arm of the 

 river. Worked cautiously up to it^ but it rose out of shot and 

 flew off, never rising above ten feet from the g-round. Marked 

 tlie direction, crossed the river and found it walking- about slow- 

 ly on some sand hills. Crept on my hands and knees to within 

 about eig-hty yards, beyond which there was not an inch of cover. 

 Could not g-et nearer ; fired a BB green cartridge ; cut the sand up 

 all round him, but did no damage. He rose and flew a good 

 mile, but I ran up to the top of a sand hill, and with the binocu- 

 lars marked by three trees the precise spot at which he lighted. 

 My people who were tired of plodding over loose sand, (it was 

 getting very hot, being midday,) declared he went away 

 altogether ; persisted and went to the spot, goose not to be 

 seen. When we got to the precise spot, I said " well, I am positive 

 he lit here," and turned to go back, when suddenly he jumped 

 up not five yards from me from under a little overhanging sand 

 crest. I let him get thirty yards and rolled him over. 



These three geese were Anser erythropns, Lin. nee. Gmelin, 

 (the A. alhifrons, Gm., of Dr. Jerdon's work) the first 1 have ever 

 shot or seen alive in India in my life, though I have received 

 specimens from Oudh. From the latter locality I have also 

 obtained A. minutus, Naum. I once shot a pair of A. hrachi/rhynchus, 

 Baill., in the Jumna, in the Etawah district, but all these three 

 species are very rare, so far as my experience goes, in India. 



Saw plenty of mallard (killed sixteen) and lots of cranes and 

 barfronted geese, A. indictts, of each of which I killed several for 

 the boatmen, and might have killed a dozen, also four teal 

 (Q. crecea) of which I got two. 



Towards evening* I came across a large part}^ of Totamis 

 fuscus. Killed eight with a single barrel. No. 4 shot. Yesterday, 

 by a similar shot, I killed six green shanks and one T. calidris. 



Just as sun set, a fine male Circus cyaneus which can always 

 be distinguished even on the wing by its blue throat and upper 

 breast, passed close by me. 



Looking at the grey lag geese shot yesterday, I may note, 

 that Jerdon (probably quoting some English author) gives the 

 weight at from 9 to 12 lbs. Now I have certainly weighed more 

 thiin a hundred birds, and I have never met with one single bird 

 that weighed quite 9 lbs. Very fine males weigh 8 to 8^, and 

 females, 6 lbs. If the European bird really ever weighs 12 lbs., 

 it must be a considerably larger bird, for ours feeding on the 

 gram and other grain and lentil fields, are as fat and plump as it 

 is possible to be, huge layers of fat underlying* the skin and 

 rendering the proper preservation of specimens a most laborious 

 undertaking. 



