THE SHELLDRAKE OR BURROW-DUCK. 137, 
which I noted as very strong and muscular, also contained some 
green vegetable matter and a quantity of coarse sand. 
“ Their note,” says Yarrell, “is a shrill whistle.” According to 
Dresser, “the call note of the male is a deep kory, korr, but the 
female utters a loud quacking sound like that of many other 
Ducks, The “orr? note is probably only uttered during the 
breeding season ; I have never heard it. With us both sexes, 
when undisturbed, emit a harsh quack, recognizably distinct 
from that of all other Ducks with which I am acquainted, and 
both sexes, most commonly when suddenly surprised, give forth a 
note of alarm, which might perhaps be called a whistle. 
These birds are, asa rule, so very shy in India that it is 
difficult to learn anything of their habits, and I never once had 
any opportunity of watching them at close quarters. The only 
point I noticed was, that on two occasions I saw birds washing 
and sluicing themselves with an energy and persistence that I 
have rarely seen equalled in any other species. Standing in water 
five or six inches deep, the bird kept ducking under from bill to 
tail, flufing up all the body feathers, and vibrating its half 
opened wings for such a time that, on the first occasion, I 
thought something must be wrong. But no sooner had I put 
down the glasses, and commenced working up cautiously in a 
grey gun punt, (in which almost any other Fowl would have 
allowed me to approach within sixty or seventy yards, against 
the wind, as I then was,) than the bather pulled himself into 
shape in an instant, gave a couple of waves of his pointed 
wings, sounded a call to attention to his mate, (hidden from me 
by some rushes,) and away went the pair, straight off, to Mon- 
golia for all I know, and were out of sight in five minutes. For 
a fortnight afterwards, I had a man watching the place, but they 
never returned, and by that time the hot weather was on us. 
No bird is more conspicuous amongst Wild Fowl than the 
Shelldrake, the brilliant whiteness of so much of its plumage 
catching the eye at long distances, so that it is never likely to 
be overlooked, and yet every Indian fowler that I have con- 
sulted agrees with me that they have very rarely met with it. It 
is widely spread; you may meet with it any year, anywhere 
within the limits above indicated, but it visits us in very small 
numbers and very irregularly. 
The real secret of this is, I fancy, that they are by preference 
sea-coast birds ; and that though they will halt fora day or so 
here and there, they do not willingly make a winter home on our 
fresh-water broads. There are just a few very large pieces of 
water like the Manchar Lake in Sind, or the Najjafgarh Jhil 
in the old predrainage days, where a few pairs would spend the 
whole winter, but, as a rule, they are only to be seen fora day or 
two at a time at any jhil, leaving the place for good, for 
that season at any rate, after a gun has once been fired there. 
They are at once perhaps the most showily plumaged and 
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