S64 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



and bheels. In Jessore and Khulna we only saw one flock on the" 

 Moolna bheel, and that not a large one, but on the rivers we saw 

 several big flocks. Here I tried Hume's plan of floating down on them 

 in boats, but a good many circumstances combined to prevent my 

 having any success. In the first place the water was almost every- 

 where too deep to enable a man to wade and push behind the boats', 

 then also the fear of " muggers " was much too strongly felt by the 

 men for them to remain in the water long enough to get near the 

 birds, and finally, these last were exceedingly wide awake and would 

 not allow us to get within distance of anything but the longest shots. I 

 did get one pair eventually, but it was only by an adaptation of Hume's 

 plan. The geese, of which there was a flock of about forty, were on a 

 sand chur, about fifty yards from the bank of the river, which was 

 about two hundred yards wide. I dropped down the river along the 

 bank, furthest from the geese, and then, when below them, worked 

 across the river and got out the same side as the geese. Hiding at once 

 in the rank grass on the bank, I sent the boat back to within a couple of 

 hundred yards of the geese, and when I saw that their attention was 

 fully taken up with it, managed to stalk to the edge of the water 

 nearest where they were ; armed with wire cartridges, No. 2 shot, I 

 thought I could do some execution on the flock as they sat on the bank, 

 but after I fired at them only two remained as the rest flew off. The 

 flock, however, seemed to consider that the boat was the aggressor, and 

 sweeping round flew within 20 yards of me, and 1 knocked over three 

 with my second barrel. Of these three one was snapped up as it touched 

 the water, by a crocodile, and the same fate happened to the second 

 before we got to it, wnilst the third flew away again without offering 

 another chance. 



In the daytime, according to Hume, Tickell, and nearly all other 

 observers, as well as my own observations,- geese, of all kinds nearly., 

 rest during the day on land near the edge of the water ; they seem to 

 prefer bare sandy churs, especially when these are surrounded by 

 water, but failing such, they rest on the banks. A few birds always 

 seem to be posted as sentries and they keep a wonderfully keen look-out, 

 and are very hard to approach, within reasonable distance for a shot. 

 Mr. Theobold says, that in Coimbatore during the daytime, t{ they keep 

 floating idly in the centre of some tank or river." 



