THE COTTON TEAL. 103 
MODERATE-SIZED pieces of water, much overgrown with Sin- 
ghara, (Zrapa bispinosa,) and other water plants, and more or 
less surrounded by trees, are the favourite haunts of the Cotton 
Teal. Tame and familiar little birds, village ponds, at any rate 
where Singhara are grown, seem to be just as much affected as 
more secluded pieces of water. You may often see half-a- 
dozen dabbling about in the water and weeds within ten yards 
of the spot where the village washerman is noisily thrashing 
the clothes of the community, sore suo, on large stones or ribbed 
slabs of wood, as if his one object in life was to knock every 
thine into rags at the earliest possible moment. Even the loud 
half-grunt, half-groan, with which he relieves his feelings after 
each mighty thwack, has no terror for these little birds, nor for 
the Water Pheasants (Hydrophasianus chirurgus ), the Dab-Chicks 
(Podiceps fluviatilis),or the Whistling Teal (Dendrocygna javanica) 
—all so habitually seen in the same ponds as the Cotton Teal. 
Fire a shot and they disappear like the Dab-Chicks for a 
minute, but only to reappear and continue paddling about and 
feeding as if nothing had happened, apparently, in most places 
where I have met with them, confident that no attack on them 
can be contemplated. No doubt in parts of the country where 
they are habitually shot at they grow wilder and warier, but 
in the North-West Provinces people so seldom shoot at them, 
that you may often clear a large pond of other Water Fowl, firing 
a dozen shots or more, and yet see the Cotton Teal swimming 
about, quite at their ease and unalarmed, within thirty yards of 
you. And it seems almost a pity to shoot them; they are 
by no means particularly good eating; there is very little on 
them, and they are such pretty bright little birds, and, as a rule, 
- so confiding that to pot them at five and twenty or thirty yards 
distance, as I have occasionally seen done, is a down-right 
shame. In Lower Bengal, however, wherethey are both wilder 
and much more numerous, they afford, at times, fairly good sport. 
I mean where you can get them beaten and driven, and for 
perhaps a quarter of an hour you have them dashing past you, 
eight or ten per minute, in ones and twos, in all directions, and 
at all angles. They fly very fast when well on the wing, and 
while nothing is easier than to shoot them just as they have risen, 
I have seen them massed, time after time, as they flashed by over 
head, or in front or behind one, at distances of from thirty to 
fifty yards. Asa rule they fly Zow, but when thoroughly routed 
up at some long frequented jhil, though they cling to this latter 
persistently, they fly high enough. They are hardy, densely- 
plumaged birds, and will carry away a good deal of shot. 
Their call is quite peculiar, a sort of sharp, short, chuckling 
cackle, which they sometimes utter very frequently, at others 
very seldom. I never quite understood this; alike when at 
their ease, when chased by dogs, when shot at and whirring 
bewildered round and round their invaded sanctuary, when 
