THE PINK-HEADED DUCK. 175 
it once about twenty miles from Secunderabad after the rains 
had set in, and Jerdon heard of it at Jalna. 
But along the east coast it is less rare. It certainly occurs in 
the Pulicat lake, as I have a specimen shot there, and Jerdon, 
years previously, had obtained a specimen in the Madras market 
caught there, and another from Nellore. Again north of Nellore 
it appears to occur in suitable situations in Vizagapatam* and 
Ganjam, north of which again in Cuttack, as in the rest of 
Lower Bengal, it is an occasional straggler. 
So far as I yet know, this species does not occur in either 
Pegu or Tenasserim, but Blyth gives it from Arakan. 
Outside our limits I have only heard of its occurrence north of 
Bhamo, in Independent Burma. It is never found anywhere 
in the Himalayas, and is therefore not likely to cross them, but 
it may extend wd Assam and Upper Burma into South- 
western China (Yunan), though as yet this fact has not been 
ascertained. 
Summing up the meagre information at my command, I am 
disposed to consider Behar and the rest of Bengal north of the 
Ganges and west of the Brahmaputra as its head-quarters; I 
include the Nepal and Oudh Terai, the central and eastern 
portions of Oudh, the Benares division of the North-Western 
Provinces, the whole of the rest of Bengal, Assam, and 
Munipur, and the east coast littoral as far south as Madras, 
within its normal range, throughout which, however, it is, 
except in certain special isolated localities, very rare. Its 
occurrence elsewhere in any part of the empire I look upon as 
quite exceptional and abnormal. 
NEVER HAVING myself met with this Duck alive in a feral 
state, what little I have to say of its habits will be based solely 
on the reports of others. 
Essentially a lake and swamp species, this bird is never seen 
on any of our large rivers, or indeed, so far as I can learn, on 
running water of any kind. 
Tanks and pools, thickly set with reeds and aquatic 
plants, swamps dense with beds of bulrushes and the like, 
* Lieut.-Colonel W. J. Wilson kindly favours me with the following note:—‘‘ The 
Pink-headed Duck used to frequent a piece of water near Condakirla, about 27 
miles south of Vizagapatam, and in all probability is still to be found there, as well 
as at similar places in the Northern Circars, although I do not now remember 
having actually seen it except at Condakirla. 
*“ The lakes in question are extensive and thickly covered by aquatic plants, so that 
the birds have plenty of cover, and the only way of shooting them is from a long 
narrow canoe punted through the weeds. 
“These lakes seem to be peculiar to the Circars, and are called ‘AWA’ in 
Vizagapatam, and ‘ Zumpera’ in Ganjam. They are resorted to by wild fowl 
of most kinds. 
*“To the best of my recollection the Pink-headed Duck I shot were killed in 
November and December. I think I saw about 15 or 20 on each occasion of my 
visit,”’ 
