THE SHELLORAKE BURROW 
DUGK. 
Tadorna cornuta, S. G. Gmelin. 
Vernacular Names.—[Shah-chakwa, Sufaid-surkhab, Upper India; Niraji, 
Sind ; Mekaz (¢), Alikaz (2), Shah Moorgabee, Kébul; J 
———_9 ——- — 
HE Common Shelldrake or Shieldrake is a somewhat 
rare visitant to many parts of our Empire, north of 
the 22nd parallel of North Latitude. I have it from 
the mouths of the Indus, the Coasts of the Gulf of 
Cutch, from near Nowanugger, Kathiawar, and from 
close to Calcutta, and Mr. H. Fasson writes that it 
occurs in Chittagong. I have no record as yet of 
its occurring anywhere southwards of these localities. 
Northwards, it has been observed in Sind, on the Eastern 
Nara, at the Manchar Lake, and one or two other of the 
larger broads. It occurs occasionally, chiefly on the larger 
pieces of water, almost throughout the Punjab, the North- 
West Provinces and Oudh, and has been observed in several 
of the districts of Lower Bengal. But it has never been 
recorded from any part of Assam, Chota Nagpur, the Central 
Provinces, the Central India Agency, or Rajputana, though it 
may not improbably prove to straggle into one or all of these, 
especially Assam. For, though it is not found in the Central 
or Western Himalayas,* Hodgson notices it as a rare visitant, 
on passage, to the Nepal Valley. 
Outside our limits it occurs in Eastern Tibet, and throughout 
Mongolia as a summer visitant, and again on the Chinese Coast 
(whence Swinhoe notices it from Amoy, Formosa, Takoo, and 
Pekin), and in Japan, as a winter migrant. It does not range 
far north in Asia or beyond the southern portions of Dauria. 
It has not been recorded from Yarkand, but breeds throughout 
Eastern Turkestan, and is common on the Caspian. It is not 
rare about Kabul and Kandahar, and has been seen once or 
twice in Beluchistan, of course as a winter visitant only, as it 
* Strange as it may seem, it being common in Kabul, no one has ever yet observed 
it in any of the Kashmir Lakes, nor have I seen or procured it in or from any part of 
the Himalayas west of Nepal, 
