564 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



hand, the water fails them, they go off elsewhere. In Sind they are 

 rainy-weather visitants only, and they also leave the Deccan in great 

 numbers as the waters dry up at the end of the cold weather. It is 

 found throughout the Terai, but does not ascend very high, and, most 

 probably, Hodgson's specimen was not really obtained in Nepal. 



Here in Cachar it is extremely common all the year round in the 

 plains but never ascends the hills at all. 



Hume, writing of this bird, says : " It is essentially a tree duck ; it 

 must have trees as well as water, and hence its entire absence from some 

 pieces of water, in treeless parts of Kajputana for instance, where other 

 species of ducks abound during the cold season. Yet it prefers level, or 

 fairly level tracts to very broken hilly country, and again, though in 

 some places, e.g., at Tavoy, it may be met with in rivers in enormous 

 flocks, it, as a rule, prefers moderate sized lakes and ponds to rivers. 



" Owing to these preferences, there are many tracts, as for instance 

 portions of the Deccan, where it is extremely rare." 



This is quite true, but in Eastern India, more especially Bengal, nearly 

 all the country is more or less well supplied with trees and also water, so 

 that local migrations are not necessary and therefore not indulged in, 

 except in the very narrowest sense of the word. 



The same applies to Ceylon, where Legge describes them as permanent, 

 but moving to and from certain places with the season. 



Hume says that it seems to be a permanent resident only in districts 

 which are wsll drained as well as possessing other attributes. This is cer- 

 tainly not the case in many or most parts of Bengal, where the birds are 

 resident however ill-drained the district may be. 



It is quite the exception for them to be seen in any number on rivers 

 and open, clean pieces of water ; they prefer tanks, backwaters, swamps 

 and lakes, the latter especially when they are well covered with weeds 

 or vegetation. 



My tirst duck shooting in India was obtained in Jessore, and until 

 then I had no idea of the vast numbers in which duck of different kinds 

 assembled. Teal of sorts were common, and Gadwal, Pintail and many 

 ducks also, but the Whistling Teal must have numbered at least 100 to 

 each one of all the other kinds included. It was almost incredible the 

 enormous flocks in which they assembled, thousands and thousands flew 

 on every side of us as we shot, and the dull rumbling of their wings was 



