194 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, XL 



to the north and east of the Island. Logge writes (" Birds of Ceylon," 

 p. 1067) : " This pretty little bird is common in the tanks of the 

 northern and eastern parts of the Island, building in many secluded 

 spots, and moving about considerably during the rainy weather. To the 

 western province and south-west of the Island it is apparently chiefly a 

 north-east monsoon migrant, as about Christmas it is met with on the 

 Kotti and Kaesbawa lakes and other similar sheets of water." 



In Burma it appears to be found everywhere as far south of 

 Tenasserim as Tavoy. 



In certain of the drier portions of its habitat this bird is semi-migratory 

 in its habits, only visiting them in the rains, and leaving again for some 

 more suitable place, as the haunts in the former begin to dry up. Hume, 

 talking of the vast numbers seen every day during the cold weather in 

 the Calcutta market, says that it a mystery to him where they come 

 from. Having myself shot over some of the vast bhils and back-waters 

 of the Ganges and Brahmapootra, I think it would take a very large 

 number indeed to surprise me. In the places mentioned they simply 

 swarm in thousands, and are only out-numbered by the "Whistling Teals. 

 I suppose every one knows how the fishermen of the Sunderbuns and 

 other parts net the vast numbers of duck that are daily sent in to 

 the Calcutta market, but in case there are some who do not, the following 

 may explain. Over a great stretch of shallow bhil they erect 

 nets some fifteen or twenty feet high, usually selecting the end 

 of a large patch of water where it narrows off either into dry 

 land or again widens out into yet another bhil. Then, by night, 

 they pole silently up the lake towards the nets, driving the flock 

 of duck and teal silently before them, nor is any noise made until an 

 approach has been made to within some 200 yards, or even less of the 

 nets. Thus, when the shouts are raised, many of the flocks have not time 

 to rise high enough to evade the nets, into which they fly and are 

 entangled. Cotton Teal, of course, fly low along the surface of the 

 water and hence fall victims to the nets more easily than such ducks as 

 get quickly into the air and fly high. On the Moolna bhil, I am sure, 

 forty or fifty couple might be shot in a day by a single gun without any 

 very great trouble or luck ; but in Bengal very few sportsmen, except 

 such as shoot for quantity alone, consider them game, and Cotton Teal 

 are left alone unless when required as food for servants, boatmen, or 



