INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. . 567 



probably prefer vegetable food. They graze often in the rice fields, but 

 only when the plant is very young, and I have seen thern grazing on 

 the coarse dhub grass which often grows on sandy spots at the edges of 

 tanks and jhils in the cold weather. 



I have found that they eat large quantities of a very small fresh- 

 water snail ; this has a very brittle shell and so is probably easily 

 crushed and digested. These snails might account for the flavour of 

 which the bird is unfortunately the possessor. Anyway, it is most 

 rare to tind a Whistling Teal fit to eat, though it is not an impossibility 

 to get such a young bird just at the commencement of the cold 

 weather being the most likely to furnish an edible dish. 



Their note is described by their name and is a regular whistle, not 

 very clear, rather sibilant, and by no means harsh or shrill. It is 

 uttered constantly whilst on the wing, especially when first rising and 

 during the first few wheels. I have also heard it during the breeding 

 season give vent to a low chuckling, not unlike the lower garrulous 

 notes of the Cotton Teal, but more nearly approaching the quack of 

 a true duck. 



No articles on ducks could possibly be complete without Hume's 

 story of the Whistling Teal, Crows, Cat and Dogs, so it must be here 

 quoted in full. 



" I once saw a good large half-wild village cat spring down upon 

 a duck, which was sitting on her nest, in abroad four-pronged fork 

 of a mango tree. The duck did not whistle in the usual manner, 

 she positively screamed ; in a second the drake dashed at the cat, 

 and to my surprise down came a black crow (C. macrorJiynchus) not, 

 as any one would have thought, to steal the eggs in the confusion, but 

 to assail the cat with claws and beak as if his own homestead had been 

 attacked. In less time than it takes to describe, the oat was squalling 

 in her turn, and fled up one of the branches pursued closely by the 

 drake and the crow, who were immediately joined by another crow, and 

 the three made it so hot. for pussy, that she sprung to the ground, 

 where my dogs, aroused by the uproar above (the noise those two 

 crows made was astounding), were awaiting her, and before I could 

 interfere, and before she quite recovered the jump of some 35 or 40 

 feet, killed her outright. But the strangest part of the business was 

 that the villagers assured me that this nest was the crow's own nest, 



