100 TXDIAX DICKS. 



Female. — Like the male, but perhaps averaging smaller. 



The young. — " AVheii just able to fly, do not differ very iducIi from the 

 adult, but are everywhere duller coloured. The ii;argiiis to the featliers of the 

 interscapularj region are inconspicuous and dingy fulvous, and the entire lower 

 surface a rather pale, dull, fidvous-brown." {Hvme.) 



There are few j)laces in India where this very coninion hird niav not 

 be found, but outside our limits it does not extend very far. It is ohtaiiu'd 

 througliout the Indo-Chinese countries and Siam, and in the Loochoo 

 Islands, the Mahiy Peninsula, 8unnitra, Borneo, and Java. Mr. C. B. 

 Rickett obtained a specimen near Sharj) Peak, close to Foocliow, and it 

 had been obtained on one or two other occasions in India. The )>ir(l shot 

 by Mr. Rickett was killed in November. 



The specimen said to have been brought home from Lake Tchad, in 

 Central Africa, seems to have been recorded as the result of some mistake. 

 The Whistling-Teal is, in many parts of India, a local migrant, visiting 

 them only during the rains ; and this we can well understand, knowing 

 how many places in Northern and North-western India change their 

 character with the advent of the rains, from utterly dry, burnt-up tracts 

 to well- watered wet ones. 



Cripps says that it is not found in Dacca during the cold weather ; but 

 this I know is not now the case, as I have seen tliem there at that season, 

 only they keep to the wetter portions of the district, and doubtless manv 

 do move to Sylhet, where there is never any want of swamps and bheels. 

 In the same way many birds leave Cachar as the water subsides and go 

 into Sylhet. In Bengal I think the question is entirely one of water- 

 supply, and where the water is sufficient there these Teal will remain 

 independent of the season. When, on the other hand, the water fails 

 them, they go off elsewhere. In Sind they are rainy-weather visitors 

 only, and they also leave the Deccan in great numbers as the waters dry 

 up at the end of the cold weather. It is found throughout tlie Terai, but 

 does not ascend very high, and most probably Hodgson's specimen was 

 not really obtained in Nepal. 



In Cachar it is extremely common all the year round in the plains, but 

 never ascends the liills at all. 



Hume, writing of this bird, savs : — "It is essentially a tree-duck ; it 

 must have trees as well as water, and hence its entire absence from sonu^ 

 pieces of water, in treeless parts oC Rajputana, for instance, where other 

 s})ecies of duck abound during the cold season. Yet it prefers level, or 

 fairly level, tracts to yery broken hilly country, and again, though in some 



