ANAS ZONORHYNCHA, 141 



recorded from Kengtmig in the Slum States, and shall proljably find that it 

 is common throughout the Shan States, and indeed Northern Burniah 

 everywhere, as it is now known to be more or less common as far west as 

 Dibrugarh, where, however, ( 'ri})ps also got iKecilovhijnclia. 



The first to obtain this bii'd in our limits was the correspondent ol: the 

 ' Asian ' at Kengtung on the 10th Jan., 180'J. In 1902, .Messrs. Moore and 

 Mundy got several specimens in Dibrugarh, and each succeeding year u}> 

 to 1905 got others. I obtained my first specimens in 1903, and got a good 

 many more in 1904 and 1905. 



On one occasion only did any ol: us see the bird in any numbers, and 

 on this Mr. Moore came across a flock o£ about forty at a small collection 

 of shallow swamps on the road to Dimaji in Lakhimpur. He obtained 

 two or three specimens and on his return to Dibrugarh told me of the 

 flock, and when I went out some ten days later the flock was still there, 

 and I got a pair in the first drive. They refused to leave the swamps 

 round about, but after the first two shots had been fired it was impossible 

 to get near them or to get them within shooting-distance of our mychans. 



As a rule, we found the birds either singly or in pairs, less often in 

 small flocks of four or five birds, but in the former case they were always 

 in company with Teal, Gadwall, or other ducks of some kind. They were 

 just as wild as all the other ducks in this district, and the only way we 

 could get them was by driving ; no amount of artifice or care could get 

 one within decent shooting otherwise. We had small and extremely dicky 

 mychans, or platforms, made in different places in the huge bheels ; these 

 were well concealed by reeds and water-weeds, and we got into them with 

 as little noise as possiljle, and then sent boats all round about to put up the 

 birds. The local people knew the habits of the duck well, and generally 

 managed to arrange the hiding-places so that they were in the line of flight 

 most often taken by the Ijirds, and we got a great deal of very pretty 

 shooting in this way, though our Ijags were not heavy. Still we often 

 managed to pick u}) thirty or forty birds, losing sometimes as many more 

 in the im]jenetraljle cane brakes, and by winged birds diving and st> 

 escaping" or being carried off by the many Eagles which infest these 

 waters. We could, of course, see all round us by peering through the 

 reeds, but there were four sides to watch on ; and often as we watched a 

 flock coming up in front of us, a second would come up from the opposit(> 

 direction, and the first we woidd know of it would be the sountl of their 

 wings as they hurtled through the aii" high overhead. Sometimes too, as 

 we watched, a flight of Teal would rush by onh' a foot or two above the 



