Obituary.



263



that in contrast with the Whistling Duck looked even smaller than

it really is. The dark surroundings of trees and grasses showed up

the white very brightly. And I remember thinking to myself,

“ Can I be looking at an out-of-plumage Smew?’ - This confession

brings us to the end of these jottings with the Falcated Teal

(.Eunetta falcata). At one end of the maidan in the city of

Khatmandu in Nepal is a large stone-sided tank. In the middle is

a pretty little temple. There was always a flock of wildfowl on

this tank. Mallard, Shoveler, Pintail, and Teal formed the greater

proportion of the birds, but there was also a Scaup, and one bird

that, with the aid of my glasses, I puzzled over for some time. It

was a male bird of this species.


It may seem curious that a paper about birds seen in India

should deal so largely with species familiar in Britain or at any

rate in palsearctic lands ; it will be disappointing to find no account,

for example, of lovely Sun-birds or of Flower-peckers nor of others

that one associates in one’s mind with a “tropical” land. There

are several reasons for this. If we except a few of Ceylon, all those

birds here described were seen north of a line drawn from Bombay

to Calcutta; again, the season was winter, when many “ half-

hardy ” birds go South ; and further, a majority of the most gorgeous

birds are yet the least noticeable in the dense foliage they often

frequent, and demand more time and patient watching than is

possible on a flying visit, when one is almost daily travelling on.



OBITUARY.


We greatly regret to have to record another loss in our roll of

members, a victim of the war. Lieutenant ROWLAND E. NAYLOK,

1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers (killed in action on May 17), was the son

of Mrs. John Naylor, Marrington Hall, Welshpool, and Elmwood,

Wootton, Liverpool. Lieut. Naylor, who was twenty-one, was

educated at Eton and Sandhurst. He obtained his commission in

August and went out in September. Wounded by shrapnel in

October he returned to the front in January. An all-round cricketer,

he was wicket-keeper for the Eton Eleven and twice played at Lord’s

against Harrow. His three brothers are in the Service.



