184 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



proved a total failure, as though the birds flew within thirty or forty 

 yards of me they kept inside the forest on the same side of the stream 

 as that on which I was seated, and I hardly caught a glimpse of them 

 much less obtained a shot. The Cachari told me that when he came on 

 the first one it was in a tree from which it did not fly until he was 

 underneath, and that then it made off to its mate, which was some two 

 hundred yards higher up the stream. They then both settled in a small 

 pool and did not again take to wing until he had sneaked to within 

 twenty yards when they got up and flew straight away, passing, as I 

 have already said, just out of sight of me. We heard them calling two 

 or three days after this, but when I attempted to stalk them they made 

 off long before I got within sight or shot of them. 



When I saw the pair in Barpeta I was shooting Kya Partridge 

 in the ekra-covered patches of swamp in the forests, and a pair 

 got up some forty or fifty yards from me from some swamp just as 

 I emerged from the forest. Two barrels of No. 7 pattered on their backs 

 at once, but seemed not to have the smallest effect on them. These two 

 birds flew just like geese, one bird (the male, I suppose, for he looked 

 much the heavier) about ten yards in front of the other, their necks 

 fully outstretched and squawking loudly as they flew for the first 

 few hundred yards. Whilst in the open they flew within a few feet 

 of the ground, but on regaining the forest mounted higher until they 

 disappeared altogether in the distance. 



Mr. Moylan in narrating to me how he met with this duck in Sini in 

 Singbhoom, said that they were shooting in grass-covered swamps at 

 the edge of heavy forest. They were standing at the edge of this forest 

 when he saw four birds, which he took to be geese, coming down towards 

 him and his companions. They were at a great height, but a charge 

 of S. K. G. shot took effect on the foremost, and he came crash to the 

 ground, turning out to be a fine drake. It is possible that Mr. Moylan 

 may have been wrong in his identification, but I failed to discover any 

 reason to make me think so, though I questioned him closely on the 

 matter. This was the only occasion on which he ever saw the duck. 



I have an egg said to be of this species. A creamy white egg, ex- 

 tremely smooth and glossy, with fine close grain but not very hard. It 

 was taken from a deep hollow in a rotten tree, the nest consisting of a 

 mass of grass and some feathers. It was found two or three jdays after 



