DEXDHOCYCXA JAVAXICA. 101 



places, e.g. at Taboy, it may be met with in rivers in enormous flocks, it, as 

 a rule, prefers moderate-sized lakes and ponds to rivers. 



" Owing to these preferences there are many tracts, as, for instance, 

 portions of the Deccan, where it is extremely rare/^ 



This is quite true, but in Eastern India, more especially Bengal, nearly 

 all the country is more or less well supplied with trees and also water, so 

 that local migrations are not necessary, and therefore not indulged in 

 except in the very narrowest sense of the word. 



The same applies to Ceylon, w here Legge describes them as permanent, 

 but moving to and from certain places with the season. 



Hume says that it seems to be a permanent resident only in districts 

 which are xt:ell drained as well as possessing other attributes. This is 

 certainly not the case in many or most parts of Bengal, where the birds 

 are resident, however ill-drained the district may be. 



It is quite the exception for them to be seen in any number on rivers 

 and open dean pieces of water ; they prefer tanks, backwaters, swamps, 

 and lakes, the latter especially when they are well covered with weeds or 

 vegetation. 



My first duck-shooting in India was obtained in Jessore, and until then 

 I had no idea of the vast numbers in which duck of different kinds 

 assemble. Teal of sortie were common, and Gradwall, Pintail, and man}^ 

 Ducks also, but the Whistling-Teal mnst have numbered at least one 

 hundred to each one of all the other kinds included. It was almost 

 incredible the enormous flocks in which they assembled ; thousands and 

 thousands flew on every side of us as we shot, and the dull rumblings of 

 their wings w^ere heard a mile away or more, even before they were dis- 

 turbed. AVe did not, of course, shoot them, but we found them a horrible 

 nuisance, for they were quite as wild as the other ducks, and whenever a 

 careful stalk had enabled us to get almost within shot of a fat lot of 

 Gad wall, or nice flock of Blue-winged Teal, or other much-to-be-desired 

 game, some wretched Whistling-Teal was sure to pop out of an unnoticed 

 piece of cover and make off with loud whistlings and whirring wings, 

 followed by every other duck within two or three hundred yards. A few, 

 })('i-ha])S, of the AVhistling-Teal might pass us within shot, Init it was 

 almost certain that the duck we wanted would not. 



Ft is very diftioult to estimate how many birds there were on the 

 Mo(flna Bheel when I first visited that grand shooting-ground, but there 

 must ('(n'tainly lia\«' been sometimes hundreds of thousands on the wing 

 at once. 



