THE WIGEON. 199 
I HAVE seldom seen the Wigeon anywhere, either in hills 
or plains before the last week in October; but I once shot one 
in the Din on the 21st of that month. In the North-West 
Provinces I have never shot one as late as April, and further 
south they leave during the middle of March; but I have a 
specimen killed in the Peshawur Valley on the 17th of April. 
The Wigeon is a very irregular migrant to all parts of the 
country ; all accounts arein accord on this point. “One year we 
see hardly any ; the next perhaps they are specially abundant,” 
is the purport of what correspondents from a dozen different 
localities have written. Habitually they are far more common 
during the winter in the south, the Deccan for instance, 
than in Upper India ; but by comparing accounts it would seem 
that, when they are commonest in the North-West Provinces 
and Oudh, they are least common in the south, and vice versd, 
and this may be generally the case, and so not improbably, 
though very differently distributed in different years, much 
about the same number yearly find their way to the Empire 
as a whole. 
Where they are abundant you find them, as a rule, in flocks 
of from twenty to five hundred ; where scarce, in pairs or small 
parties, rarely exceeding seven in number. 
Their flight is swift and powerful, but not equal to that of 
the Pin-tail. On the other hand it is accompanied by a much 
harsher rustle, which can always be distinguished from that 
of the other fowl that I know. They spring up more readily 
than the Pin-tail from the water or the ground, and more per- 
pendicularly than these. In fact, in these respects they are 
about equal to the Gadwall ; and, though they come easily to bait, 
and are often captured therefore in fall-nets, they must be 
flushed pretty close to the standing net, or they will clear it. 
They swim very well, and when wounded and pursued, give a 
long chase, diving continually and turning rapidly under water. 
‘Where undisturbed they are seen more on land than most 
of our ducks, walking about on the turf that often fringes 
our broads and rivers, and grazing freely. 
In Upper India, we habitually meet with them on good- 
sized pieces of water, some portions of the shores of which 
are smooth and turfy. They are excessively rare on bare 
lakes like the Sambhar. On small ponds I have never once 
seen them. Nor have I, except very rarely, seen them on our 
large rivers, but they are not so uncommon in smaller rivers 
flowing through meadow-like turfy flats. They are common 
enough on the sea coast however, though generally some little 
distance up the estuaries and creeks where there is a certain 
admixture of fresh water. 
With us in the North-West Provinces they are more purely 
erass-eaters than any other duck. Of a large number of speci- 
mens that I obtained this last cold season at the Phulpur 
