510 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCLETY, Vol. XX. 



Rajputana, Oiidh and the Peninsula since in many places where they 

 were scarce the rainfall was not far below the average. The excessive 

 rain and overflowing tanks at Ajmer and Abu Road and the want of rain 

 and the drying up of the tanks in the Gonda and Bahraich districts are the 

 two extreme conditions which ducks do not like, hence their absence. In 

 what way, however, can we account for the absence of duck in Mahi 

 Kantha, where the rainfall was about normal and there were plenty of 

 snipe, which shows there was no scarcity of water ? In Lower Bengal the 

 rains were bad, but nevertheless duck were more numerous than usual. 



With so few returns at our disposal, it is very difficult to attempt to give 

 any reason for the season being bad as a whole, since the rainfall appears 

 to have been up to the average leaving out Rajputana and Oudh. Probably 

 the distribution of rain during the monsoon and an examination of the 

 rainfall returns for previous years might help to explain matters, but with 

 so few returns it would be impossible to make any safe deductions. 



Coming now to geese, it is rather interesting to find that there were 

 "rather more than usual" at Ajmer where it will be remembered there 

 was a great deal of water but no duck. At Sita Road and Ghaziabad the 

 season for geese was good, but at both these places duck were said to be 

 very bad. The remaining returns show that at Dera Ismail Khan, Etah 

 and Manipur the season was good or fair, while at Sonapur it was reported 

 as being very good for Bar-headed Geese. 



As an instance how a district may vary or how differently people may 

 judge the season, it is worth mentioning that out of the four returns for the 

 Gurdaspur district, three give the season as good for duck, while the fourth 

 says " very scarce " ; and it is remarked that they " had not come in by the 

 15th November," while in one of the other returns they are said to have 

 begun to come in between the 15th and 20th October. The only other 

 districts in which the arrival of duck is mentioned are Bhandara in the 

 C. P., where the first duck to be seen was a gadwall on October 29th ; Nee- 

 much, where Lieut. Logan. Home shot a garganey and a common teal out 

 of a flock of four on 18th October and remarks : — " These were the first of 

 the year to be seen here " and in the Champarum district of Bengal where 

 a flock of garganey appeared on May 20th. Colonel Impey in the Journal 

 mentions that the first arrivals noticed on the Bharatpur Jhil were garga- 

 neys which arrived on the 15th August. By the end of November the 

 garganey had been replaced by the common teal, but they returned again 

 in February, some remaining till April. 



If more details of bags are given in the next returns, the comparison of the 

 distribution of the different kinds of duck would be most interesting. As 

 it is, there are few details in the present returns, but some of these are of 

 interest and may be worth mentioning. 



At Dera Ismail Khan mallard were in good numbers, gadwalls fair, 



