EHODOXESyA CAKYOPHYLLACEA. 4H 



The headquarters of this Duck are, as Ilume says, Bengal, north of the 

 Gauges and west o£ the Brahmapootra rivers ; above all, it is most common 

 in Maldah, Purneah, Parulia, and adjoining districts^ the two first-named 

 places being especially favoured. It has also been obtained in Arrnh, 

 Mozufferpore, Chota-Nagpur, and Ranchi, where it is only a rare bird, 

 and Singhboom, where it is rather more common. It is also found 

 sparingly through Orissa, and as far south as Madras, and all through 

 Eastern Bengal and Assam up to Manipur, where Hume obtained it. He 

 says in a'oI. xi. of 'Stray Feathers' about Rliodonessa : — "This species is 

 very scarce in Manipur. I only saw it at the Lagtak Lake, and there I 

 only saw one party that kept up in a weedy lagoon at the north-east corner 

 of the lake, where it was impossible to get them. I did get a single bird, 

 but that w^as only by lying upon several occasions in a thick reed-bed and 

 getting them driven. Three times they went in the wrong direction, but 

 having at last made out their line, I laid up in the right place the fourth 

 time and knocked down a brace, of which, however, I only recovered one ; 

 T had no dog. This species occurs in Sylhet. and has been procured in 

 various parts of the Assam Valley right up to Sadiya, but alike in Assam 

 and Sylhet (there seems to have been no record of its occurrence in Cachar) 

 it appears to be excessively rare, little more than an occasional straggler." 



In Burmah it is extremely rare ; Blyth obtained it in Arakan, and says 

 that it occurs in Independent Burmah (where ?), but Gates did not come 

 across it in Pegu, and I can find no other record of it. 



Hodgson obtained it more than once in Nepal, and Pemberton in 

 Thibet. " A Member of the Society " in vol. ii. of the ' Bombay Journal ' 

 writes : — " In Scintl .... I have one report of the Bengali Pink-headed 

 Duck occurring as a straggler, but it cannot yet be called a recorded 

 species." I suppose by this he means that he does not place much faith 

 in the report. 



1 see Murray does not record it as a Scind bird, although he is very 

 generous in the number of birds he assigns to that part of India. 



Mr. Moylan told me that once out shooting in Sini, in Singl)lioom, 

 with thi'ee other guns, they accounted for no fcnver than six of these lovely 

 ducks. They were found in the thick, weedy, reed-covered tanks lying- 

 just outside the heavy forest. Here they were in company with vast 

 numbers of other kinds of Ducks and Teal, a big bag of which was made 

 on tliis occasion. He seems frequently to have met with them in various 

 parts of Singhboom, but, as far as I could ascertain, had not seen any 

 others shot. 



