TWe WiGeou. 
eres () 
Mareca penelope, Linné. 
7) 
Vernacular Names.—[Pea-san, Patari, M-W. Provinces ; Cheyun, Chéoon, 
Nepal; Parow, Sindh ; Ade, Adla. Ratnagiri ; J 
0 
Swat, AM unable to define the distribution of the Wigeon 
within our Empire with any degree of accuracy. 
In the Himalayas it occurs in winter from Kash- 
mir to Bhutan. Throughout the Punjab, Sindh,* Raj- 
putana, the N.-W. Provinces, Oudh,+ Behar and the 
Deltaic districts of Bengal, it is met with here and 
oe there, during the cold season, very locally and capri- 
ciously distributed. In Manipur, Godwin-Austen says that it is 
“very common,” but Mr. Damant did not include it in his list, 
nor does Colonel Graham mention it in his list of the ducks of 
Darrang or Lakhimpur, nor have I as yet a single notice of its 
occurrence anywhere in the valley of Assam or in Cachar, 
Sylhet, Tipperah or Chittagong, though Blyth says it has been 
sent from Arakan; and if he and Godwin-Austen are correct, it 
must needs occur in all these. 
Mr. Oates does not mention it from Pegu, nor did Captain 
Feilden, or Wardlaw Ramsay, obtain it there, nor does Blyth 
include it in his Burmese list ; but Mason does, and Colonel 
McMaster says, “more common in Burmah than in India,” so 
that I suppose it does occur in Pegu. In Tenasserim it does 
not occur, at any rate normally, though possibly a single bird 
* AsI recorded long ago, the Wigeon is very common on the Manchar Lake, 
but neither Day, nor myself, nor Watson ever saw it in any of the innumer- 
able dhunds of the Shikarpore Collectorate. 
Elsewhere Butler found it far from common, and now Doig writes that even 
‘fon the Eastern Narra—” that paradise for aquatic fowl—‘‘it is comparatively 
rare.” 
+ Writing from the Lucknow Division, Mr. George Reid remarks :— 
‘“*The Wigeon is by no means uncommon, though it is, I think, rather erratic 
in its wanderings, being much more common in some seasons than others. During 
the past cold weather, for instance, when the jhils were much below their average 
size, and many of the smaller ones altogether dry, I did not expect to meet with it ; 
but, as a matter of fact, it was much more common than I had ever known it to be 
before. 
‘The result of my experience is, in short, that the Wigeon is fairly abundant in 
this division in some years, and exceedingly scarce in others,” 
