250 INDIAN DICKS. 



weather ot" l^SG--*^", but I tliink this was probably (hie to my having 

 refrained from shootini;- them, the (hick l^eing useless for the tal)le. 



" A brief description of the locality affected by the species may bo of 

 interest. The river Indus, after having been much narrowed above 

 Torbela, by the near approach of the mountains on each side, widens out 

 at the Chack Plain to a considerable breadth (possibly G or 7 miles 

 in })laces), to be again constricted at Attock. In the Chack Plain, where 

 the river is widest, there are numerous islands in the bed of the stream, 

 and it is the channel between the islands and the banks of the river that 

 the Golden-eye lies. A similar widening of tlie river takes place below, 

 further south, l)elow Kalabagh, and there, probaljly too, the species will 

 turn up. 



" I never met with this species away from tlie river, and, like 

 Dr. Stoker, generally found it in flocks of four or five individuals. . . . 

 The most interesting piece of information given me by my informants 

 was the short period they considered the species to be away from the 

 neighbourhood ; they said it was absent only (hiring three months — April, 

 j\Iay, and June, — but I had no opportunity of verifying this statement." 



In 1003j on tlie 25th April, Mr. Morton Eden sent me a duck to 

 identify which had been shot Ijy him in Sadiya, Lakhimpur district. With 

 this skin he sent the accompanying note : — " I think it is a Golden-eye .... 

 it is not a rare bird above )Sampura." In answer to a letter from me, 

 Mr. Morton Eden then sent me the following interesting account of what 

 he had observed : — " I shot this bird on the 3rd Fel). last, a few miles 

 above Sampui'a. I was coming down stream at the time, when the Ijird, 

 which was by itself, got up a long way down and flew up stream, passing 

 my boat at a distance of some fifty yards, and I fired at and dropped it. 



" Above Sampura, and up to and l)eyond Sidharoo, the Golden-eye is 

 not at all uncommon, and I must liave i^eon a hundred or more last 

 January and February. They occur either singly, or in small flocks of 

 eight to ten birds ; they are wild, and will not let a boat come anywhere 

 near them, but rise a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards off, and 

 generally make a fairly long flight before again settling. 



"They always flew off wlicn disturbed, and I never saw them trv to 

 escape by diving. 



"In the early mornino- I saw them on several occasions flif{htini{ with 

 Mergansers. Their flight is rapid and much like that of the Tufted 

 Pochard, but not quite, I think, so rapid as that of the White-eyed 

 Pochard. 



