580 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



universally admitted, the most cute and difficult of approach of all their 

 tribe. Possibly the crow alone exceeds them in their aptness for 

 learning the range of a gun ; they will nearly always allow of an 

 approach within two hundred yards, often within one hundred and 

 fifty yards, and this with such a devil-me-care, unconcerned look about 

 them that one would imagine a closer approach to he an act of very 

 little care indeed. Anybody who attempts to work on this presumption 

 will soon find out their error ; should the stalk be made with some, 

 yet insufficient, care, the Brahminy will allow you to come some few 

 yards further and then leave for another and better land (or water). 

 On the other hand, should the stalker be so careful as to keep well 

 enough hidden to entirely evade the watchful eye, he is not allowed to 

 approach any nearer at. all, but is given the benefit of the doubt, and all 

 he will find of the bird when he arrives will be the impressions of its 

 feet in the sand. 



Practice may sometimes be had on the larger rivers where they are 

 plentiful with one of the modem small bore rifles, with which one 

 ought to be able to kill at two hundred yards ; very soon, however, they 

 learn to fix the range even of these weapons and new ground will have 

 to be sought for for future shooting. Hume writing of this form of 

 shooting the Brahminy saj^s: " After being at this game a few days and 

 killino- five or six, not a Brahminy in the neighbourhood will let you 

 approach within a quarter of a mile, and thenceforth they give you so 

 wide a berth that they interfere very little with fowling." 



It is decidedly a bird of clean, clear water predilections, and may 

 generally be found in the larger rivers on the wide sand churs which 

 form each cold weather as the waters sink. They like such as are clean 

 stretches of sand, devoid, or almost devoid, of vegetation, and they 

 keep much to the land though not so exclusively to it as the common 

 Sheldrake. Of course where there are no rivers the Brahminy does not 

 disdain any ordinary lake or large piece of water, but he eschews such 

 as have much jungle about them and have their shores all more or less 

 clothed with the same or with growing crops, unless the latter are very 

 young and short. Small dirty ponds and weedy tanks he will have 

 nothing to say to except when in the direst distress, nor will he willingly 

 frequent small nullahs and rivers with muddy banks. Even where there 

 are fine open pieces, of water he will always leave these and resort in 



