THE PIN-TAIL. IQ! 
myriads, and make, in rising on the sudden discharge of a gun, 
a noise like the roaring of mighty waters.” 
It follows that the Pin-tail is very locally, and, as it seems at 
first sight, arbitrarily distributed.* You may shoot a beautifully 
watered tract teeming with many kinds of fowl, and yet not 
see a Pin-tail; while again elsewhere the whole place swarms 
with them ; and if sportsmen are about, large flocks of them are 
constantly seen darting by at more than railway speed, high out 
of shot, over head, conspicuous by their long pointed tails, long 
necks, and white breasts. In one respect they have the pull 
over Gadwall. I have repeatedly found them on thesea coast, 
while I have never seen the Gadwall in India on salt water. 
Eminently gregarious, it is unusualto find them in pairs or 
small parties. Commonly they are in good-sized flocks of from 
20 to 200; but I have seen flights far exceeding this latter num- 
ber even, and once at night a flight passed over me, (and there 
is no mistaking the low, soft, hissing swish of Pin-tail) which 
must have numbered thousands. 
It is worth noting, because it is a peculiarity almost confined 
to this species, that during the cold season one continually 
comes across large flocks consisting entirely of males. I cannot 
say that I ever noticed similar flocks of females, but this may 
be because the females do not attract the eye similarly, and are 
not equally readily discriminated at any distance, but “ bull- 
pic-nics” I have noted, times without number, as a speciality of 
the Pin-tail. 
Their flight is extremely rapid, more so, I think, than that of 
any species that visits us. They are shy and wary, and leave a 
jhil almost at the first shot, or if they do hesitate to change 
their quarters, circle round and round high out of shot. There 
is no driving them backwards and forwards from one piece of 
water to another, or one part of a lake to another, over sportsmen 
concealed behind screens, or in rush clumps. You may kill a 
brace or so, but directly they begin to find that shooting is 
going on in earnest, off they go, probably not to alight again for 
several miles. Then, too, the plumage is very dense, especially 
on the breast. It is always wrong to fire at fowl coming towards 
you—you should always let them pass before drawing the trigger 
—but it is especially so in the case of Pin-tail, whose breast 
feathers will turn comparatively heavy shot at very moderate 
distances. 
* Thus Mr. Davidson writes :— 
‘*The Pin-tail was a rare Duck in the Deccan, though I have shot it on several 
occasions. In Tumkur, Mysore, it swarmed, and was much the commonest of all 
the Duck tribe.” 
So again in the Southern Konkan, it is very rare, and Mr. Vidal can only say 
of them there, ‘‘ Pin-tails are to be seen in some years in small parties in the large 
Duck ground at the junction of the Vashishti and Tagbudi rivers, But they come 
late and go early,” 
