ANAS BOSCAS. 129 



get; but it is not that he uses more skill in approaching, but that there is 

 not the need to get so close. He does not require a more careful aim, for 

 he takes his shot into the brown, nearly ahvays, as they lie on the water. 

 Nor does he require more endurance. To this most people will agree who 

 have stood behind some two hundred shots fired from a 12-bore carrying 

 85- drs. of powder. Certainly getting someone to push you along on a 

 punt cannot be said to require more work than does the tramping after 

 your birds on foot. 



Mallard especially are strong flyers, and I would personally always 

 feel more satisfaction on hearing the thud, thud, of a brace of birds on the 

 ground in answer to the two barrels of my 12-bore than I would in seeing 

 fiye, or eyen ten times that number, left on the water as the result of a 

 lucky shot from a punt-gun. 



In shooting wild duck as they rise before one, it is as well to loose off 

 one's piece as soon as possible, for, as Macgilliyray says, " they rise straight 

 up) in the air, whether flushed from land or water, and whilst thus rising 

 offer what is perhaps the easiest shot, and at the same time they are not 

 increasing their distance.^' 



Mallard have queer fancies, and often resort to places where one would 

 least expect them. I well remember a drake which used to come, year 

 after year, to a tiny pond in a large private garden, where there were 

 few or no weeds on the water, but it was entirely enclosed by trees and 

 in a very deep shade. As soon as the breeding-season was on he used to 

 go off, presumably to carry on his natural duties as a husband and a father, 

 but he never brought back with him either wife or family. There were 

 sometimes tame ducks about the plaee^, but he never seemed to care to 

 associate with them, and kept them always at a respectable distance. 

 What rendered it more curious that he should have chosen such a place 

 was the fact that the garden was in the county of Norfolk, and was 

 surrounded by the famous broads and fens, where he might have obtained 

 the society of any number of his own kind. 



Yet another pair used to resort every winter to a small pond joined to 

 a moat which ran round an old monastery. These were never seen on the 

 moat itself, nor on any of the numerous ponds close to it, but when 

 disturbed — they seldom were — used to fly straight away, not to return for 

 some days. 



In Indian limits_, the Mallard breeds in vast numbers on the Kashmir 

 lakes, and in small numbers on those in Tibet, probably also throughout 

 the Himalayas in suihiltle places. Hume suggests that it may also be 



K 



