276 INDIAN DUCKS. 



as far away as before. The former procedure was ao;ain carried out, and 

 again with the same result, and nearly half an hour's chase had been 

 kept up before T got a snap-shot at the bird as it showed above water. 

 Although again hit it was not yet done for, but it was getting exhausted 

 and very soon gave me a fair shot which finished it off. All this time 

 ]iarties of birds, small and large, had been passing down the river^ but 

 none had come within shot of the boat, the excited and gesticulating 

 boatmen warning them off. Our bird gathered, the sun was now high 

 and flighting had ceased, so we turned our attention to the flocks which 

 were sunning themselves on the banks or playing in the streams or 

 backwaters. These latter, however, we soon found to be quite un- 

 approachable, and gave up in order to try those on the banks. 



These we were more successful with, as T found that with care I could 

 stalk them whilst their attention was taken up with the boat. My first 

 two attempts were failures and I olitained no shot ; but the third time a 

 crawl on my stomach of over two hundred yards on the sand brought me 

 within about forty yards, and as the flock of some thirty birds rose, I let 

 drive both barrels and dropped seven of them. Of these, two at once rose 

 again and joined the others, one lay kicking on the sand, and the four 

 others were diving in all directions. Then ensued the same kind of chase 

 that I had had after my first bird ; but there were now four l)irds in the 

 water, two going up stream and two down, and a hard hour's work 

 resulted in only one capture, the others very probably leaving the water 

 for the banks or hiding under the banks themselves. 



Further stalks and further chases enabled me to bring the contents of 

 my actual bag up to seven, but, to my regret, no less than half a dozen 

 of my wounded birds managed to escape us altogether. They took far 

 more hitting to bring down than most birds ; and as shots within fifty 

 yards were quite exceptional, it was not often they were brought down 

 stone dead, and as long as they had a kick left in them they kept the 

 boatmen hard at work. 



One bird, a female, kept us employed for over half an hour without 

 once letting the boat near enough for a shot, and then suddenly appeared 

 floating belly upwards on the water, having died during one of her dives. 



They swam under water almost as fast as the boat — a light dug-out 



with two boatmen — could be propelled, and as a rule they showed up in 



the water after each dive nearly as far off as before, until they had been 



chased for some ten minutes or so, when their dives began to shorten. 



My experience as to their progress on laud does not at all agree with 



