INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 183 



the Megna, Brahmapootra, and Ganges in numbers. The only other 

 notice of its occurrence that I know of in Eastern Bengal is of four birds 

 said to have been seen in Singbhoom by Mr. W. Moylan when out 

 shooting with two other guns, of which four birds one (a drake) was 

 shot. 



Colonel Graham seems to have found it common in the Lakhimpur dis- 

 trict of Assam, where, however, it seems he got but one bird from Sadiya, 

 and he notes it as rare in Darrang. Godwin Austen procured one on the 

 Biver Dunsiri, saw one in the Garo Hills, and knew of one killed in 

 Tezpur. Two were seen by myself in 1886 when shooting partridges in 

 the Barpeta part of the Kamroop district, and were missed by me with 

 both barrels at long ranges. The bird is known and well described by 

 the Cacharies, but, though I once heard a pair of them on the borders of 

 the Cachar and Maogang districts, I failed to get a sight of them. 

 Specimens have been obtained in Tavoy and Mergui, and these end the 

 known localities within our limits in which it has been met with. Out- 

 side it extends to the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra (?) and Java. It thus 

 seems probable that it will be found to inhabit suitable localities in 

 Eastern Bengal, where, however, it is of extreme rarity, that it becomes 

 less rare higher up the Assam Valley, being most frequently met with 

 below the hills of the extreme north-east, extends through Cachar and 

 the Indo- Burmese countries and Burma to the Malay Peninsula. 



Colonel Graham says : " They roost on trees and frequent solitary pools 

 in deep tree jungle. They are always in pairs, and may be heard calling 

 to one another at great distances. They are rare in Darrang, for the 

 forest is not dense and extensive enough there as a rule, but in 

 the vast, pathless tree jungles of Lakhimpur they are common." This 

 agrees well with what I have heard of them and their habits in North 

 Cachar. The only experience I have had personally with them in this 

 district was on a rainy day in June, when out shooting I heard two birds 

 calling to one another in loud goose-like calls. The forest was very 

 dense and consisted almost entirely of trees, but through it there wan- 

 dered a sluggish, dirty stream which here and there disappeared into 

 small morasses dotted with tiny pools of clear water. Thinking the 

 safest way to get a shot would be to drive them, I sent my Cachari 

 tracker to beat down the stream towards me from a point some two 

 hundred yards or so above where we heard them calling. The drive 



