THE GADWALL. 183 
their tail ends bolt upright, and the rest of them hidden by 
the water. 3 
Audubon by the way says:—“When in this position they 
are most easily shot, and when hidden at the edge of a piece 
of water I have often waited until the ducks commenced feed- 
ing, and turned ends upwards when I have made a most effectual 
pot shot amongst them.” Let no one be misled by this perni- 
cious doctrine ; it is the very worst (and I may add most erze/) 
position in which you caz shoot at ducks. Of every ten ducks 
thus wounded not more than three will be disabled, the remain- 
der will fly off, apparently uninjured, to die a lingering death, 
their intestines riddled with shot holes, but their heads, necks, 
wings and pectoral muscles untouched. I have a great admira- 
tion for Audubon as an artist, but as a sportsman this passage 
condemns him. 
With us their chief staple of food, so long as they can get it, 
is wild rice, (though in some parts they feed in cultivated rice 
fields largely), and later the seeds, leaves and flower buds of all 
kinds of rushes and aquatic plants. Insects and their larva 
are also largely consumed, and sometimes small worms ; but I 
have never found either frogs or fish in their stomachs, though 
elsewhere these seem to form,commonly, a portion of their 
regular diet. 
They swim more lightly, and they fly far more easily and 
rapidly than the Grey Duck or the Mallard. But like the 
former they spring up with one bound up from land and water, 
at a rather sharp angle, and usually rise thus for twenty yards 
before sweeping off ina horizontal course. Their wings are long 
and pointed, and make in passing through the air a peculiar 
whistling sound similar to, though louder than, that made by 
those of the Common Teal, by which they may be recognized as 
they pass over head in flight shooting. 
A great many of the ducks that frequent rivers by day, 
come inland about dusk to feed in jhils. Often for some little 
time one particular piece of water, perhaps not half a dozen 
acres in extent, attracts the Wild Fowl of the whole country’s 
side ; and when you find out such, and do not care, or have not 
the plant for netting them, you may with three or four guns well 
posted enjoy an hour’s most profitable and exciting sport. 
Baldwin gives a very good account of this, which I will quote :— 
“At other times this lake was a favourite resort of mine 
in the cold season. It was not far distant from the river 
Betwah, and about sun down swarms of Wild Fowl, early in the 
season especially, poured into the jhil from the river to feed 
all night. Knowing this habit, I often drove or rode out from 
Jhansi of an afternoon to the spot, procured a boat from a 
village hard by, with a man to guide it, and then made for a 
creek at the far end of the lake, bordered on each side by high 
rushes and reeds, and a favourite feeding ground for Wild 
