THE WHISTLING TEAL: Ii! 
surrounding such, even on trees growing inside the enclosures 
of cottages. They are rather dull birds, slow on the wing and 
easily shot, and they have a habit of circling round and round 
the gunner, when one of their number has been shot, that often 
proves fatal to the greater portion of the flock, when it unfor- 
tunately falls under the tender mercies of “butchers.” When 
absolutely required for food, a pair or so may be shot, but they 
are indifferent eating, and fly so poorly that they really afford 
no sport. Indeed in many places they are so tame that they . 
sit unconcernedly on some overhanging branch looking down 
at the gunner, who has to throw stones at them, before they 
will give him a chance of a flying shot. 
They swim and dive extremely well. Indeed a winged bird 
in a good large pond, full of holes, into which the pursuers 
plump without warning, will afford admirable exercise and 
amusement to a dozen beaters while you smoke a sympathetic 
cigar on the bank in the cool shade of some huge peepul. 
They are not very often seen, I think, on land, but they walk far 
better than the Cotton Teal. I have seen them feeding like Geese 
on short fine grass, and Mr. Cripps says :—“ This species is often 
seen on freshly-ploughed paddy fields, evidently feeding on the 
grains of paddy that have been left above ground after 
sowing.” 
Certainly when not on the wing they are more commonly 
either feeding in the water or resting on trees. There are 
differences in their habits, however, according to season and 
locality. During the breeding season they spend much more 
of their time in trees, at any rate where they breed on these, 
than at other times, the female, either sitting on the eggs or 
at the edge of the nest on the alert against crows and other 
robbers, and the male on some neighbouring branch with 
one eye on the water and the other on his mate, whom 
he is always ready to assist against all, but human, assailants. 
I once saw a good large half wild village Cat spring down on 
a Duck, which was sitting on her nest, in a broad four-pronged 
fork of a mango-tree. The Duck did not whistle in the 
usual manner; she positively screamed; in a second, the 
Drake dashed at the Cat, and to my surprise down came a 
Black Crow (C. macrorhynchus), not as any one would have 
thought to steal the eggs during the confusion, but to assail the 
Cat with claws and beak as if his own homestead had been 
attacked. In less time than it takes to describe, the Cat was 
squalling in her turn, and fled up one of the branches pursued 
closely by the Drake and Crow, who were immediately joined 
by another Crow, and the three made it so hot for pussy 
that she sprung down to the ground, where my Dogs, aroused 
by the uproar above, (the noise those two Crows made was 
astounding) were awaiting her, and before I could interfere, 
and before she quite recovered the jump of some 35 or 40 feet, 
