120 THE LARGER WHISTLING TEAL. 
Ball excludes it from his list of birds found between the 
Ganges and the Gddavari. in the Deltaic Districts of Bengal, 
particularly in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and in Jessore, 
it is fairly common, extending up the Ganges to Purneah, and, 
L believe, to the Sikhim and Nepal ‘Terai, (though Hodgson 
never procured it there). 
No one has noticed it from any part of Assam, Sylhet, 
Cachar, Tippera, Chittagong or Aracan. But it zs found in 
Burma. Mr. Oates remarks:—“It occurs sparingly in the 
plains of Lower Pegu, while in the Engmah swamp it isa 
common bird ; indeed it seems to occupy Upper, as the smaller 
Whistling Teal does Lower, Pegu.” Ramsay also found it, 
though less common, on the Tonghoo side of the Pegu Yoma, 
but so far as we know it occurs nowhere in Tenasserim proper. 
I am far from wishing it to be understood that it occurs in 
none of the localities where it has not as yet been observed. 
On the contrary I should confidently expect it to be found in 
Assam, Cachar, &c.; all I can do is to expose our existing 
ignorance of its distribution and leave it to future observers to 
work this out. 
Outside our limits it is not vzown* to occur anywhere in 
Asia, but it certainly occurs in Madagascar, and Messrs. Sclater 
and Salvin state that there exist no tangible grounds for 
separating our Indian bird from the species, (zou vidi,) that 
occurs in sub-tropical America, north and south, vzz., through- 
out Mexico on the one hand, and Southern Brazil, Paraguay, 
Buenos Ayres, and Monte Video on the other. 
This, be it observed, is somewhat similar to its distribution 
in the old world, with one head-quarters as it were near Cal- 
cutta, corresponding in latitude with the Mexican one, and 
another in Madagascar, corresponding similarly with the South- 
ern American range. 
There are few, if any, species whose distribution is so remark- 
able. It inhabits, apparently, four isolated blocks of country— 
one block in Asia and one in North America, both just under 
the Troptc of Cancer; one block in Africa, and one in South 
America, and both these just under the Tropic of Capricorn. 
IT is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and specially at some 
weedy ponds a few miles from Port Canning, that I have had 
any opportunities of observing this species. There 1 found them 
much less tame than their congener, with a decidedly stronger 
and somewhat more rapid flight; like them perching a good 
deal on trees, but far more often seen on land, on which they 
walk fairly well and upright with a very Goose-like gait. 
* IT have had reason to believe that it is found in both Upper or Independent 
Burma, and in Siam. But I have failed hitherto to procure specimens from either 
locality, and rough descriptions, by persons who have paid no attention to birds, 
cannot be relied on to identify species like this, 
