INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 565 



heard a mile away or more, even before they were disturbed. We did 

 not of course shoot them, but we found them a horrible nuisance, for 

 they were quite as wild as the other ducks, and whenever a careful stalk 

 had enabled us to get almost within shot of a fat lot of Gadwal or nice 

 flock of blue-wing Teal or other much-to-be-desired game, some 

 wretched Whistling Teal was sure to pop out of an unnoticed piece of 

 cover and make off with loud whistlings and whirring wings, followed by 

 every other duck within two or three hundred yards. A few, perhaps, 

 of the Whistling Teal might pass us within shot, but it was almost cer- 

 tain that the duck we wanted would not. 



It is very difficult to estimate how many birds there were on the 

 Moolna bheel when I first visited that grand shooting ground, but there 

 must certainly have sometimes been hundreds of thousands on the wing 

 at once. 



Often when we approached some piece of water where the reeds and 

 rushes grew so rank that we got right in before we fired, the Whistlers 

 would rise at the shot in masses before us, almost carrying out that old 

 figure of speech, " darkening the air." I was greatly struck on these 

 occasions by the attitudes of the birds, which reminded me much of 

 ancient prints on duck shooting, the birds with their long necks out- 

 stretched rising straight up for some height until they got fairly started, 

 when they fly off parallel with the water, generally about 30 or 40 feet 

 up and not very fast in spite of their noisy flight. Hume, Legge and 

 many others have mentioned the rapidity with which they beat their 

 wings, and have also noted the smallness of the result when compared 

 with the amount of exertion used. When found in small flocks, that 

 is to say, up to about fifty or so, on tanks, ponds and small pieces of 

 water, they often fly round and round the place before leaving it, and 

 more particularly is this the case when, there being no other water 

 very close by, they are loath to quit the piece from which they have 

 been roused. In the vast pieces of water in the delta of the Ganges I 

 did not notice this habit so much. When first disturbed and the birds 

 get up all at once, it would seem that they form a flock numbering 

 some thousands, but they soon divide into smaller ones, seldom number- 

 ing over two or three hundred, and then with a preliminary wheel or 

 two fly off to some other part of the swamp. Why they should be so 

 wild in the Sunderbans and yet so tame in most parts of their habitat I 



