Contributions to the Ornithology of India, Sj'c. 261 



for . his clumsy bill would be handsome, I think we inust put 

 them down, on the whole, in the " cheap and nasty" category. 



958.— Anas boschas, L. 



In the North -Western Provinces, compared with other ducks, 

 the mallard is scarce and so it is in the Punjab Cis-Sutlej ; 

 but, as you proceed further west, its numbers increase, and 

 all down the Jhelum, and the Chenab from Jhelum to Mooltan, 

 it is out-and-out the commonest duck. I killed from a dozen to 

 twenty daily, and might easily have killed double that number. 

 They were comparatively speaking very tame, and I used to drift 

 down to them in a little boat to within thirty or forty yards, as 

 they sat in small parties asleep at the water^s edge, bagging two or 

 three as they sat, and knocking over one and sometimes two 

 more as they rose with the second barrel. In the Indus, too, they 

 were equally abundant but more wary, as people continually 

 shoot at them from the steamers, and in most of the larger 

 inland waters of Sindh, I met with them in great numbers. At 

 first starting, the mallard lies better, and affords better sport than 

 any of the other ducks, and when you first go on to a broad that 

 has not previously been shot that season, the mallard keep conti- 

 nually rising pretty close to the boat from under the boughs of 

 water-surrounded tamarisk trees, and clumps of rush, affording 

 beautiful shots. 



959.— Anas poekilorhynclia, Gmel. 



Pretty common, but much less so than the last species, thought 

 found in the same localities. 



961.— Ohaulelasmus streperus, L. 



The gad wall was foimd in much the same places as the two 

 last. It was much commoner everywhere than pmkilorhyncha, 

 and more common than the mallard in all lahes, in fact on the 

 whole perhaps tlie most common duck on these, but it was decid- 

 edly less common on the rivers. 



962,— Dafila acuta, L. 



I never met with this in any of the rivers, but on many of 

 the lakes it abounded. It has a habit of sitting in parties 

 in amongst low water plants, with nothing but its long white neck 

 showing, and when basking thus, will often permit a tolerably 

 near approach. 



963.— Mareca penelope, L, 



I saw very few of the widgeon in Sindh as a whole, and none 

 on the rivers, but in the Mmicher lake they were in hundredsj. 



