200 THE WIGEON. 
jhil, not far from Allahabad, grass had been the chief food, 
though mingled with this were a few fresh-water shells, insects, 
and roots, and leaves of rushes and aquatic plants, and a little 
grain. I have often seen them on land grazing like Geese, but 
also often feeding in the shallows, with only their stern halves 
visible, like Mallard or Gadwall. They feed more by day and 
less by night than the Pin-tail, and do not so constantly change 
their quarters at sunset as these latter do. I have not found 
them as wary as the Pin-tail as a whole; and, though Colonel 
Hawker says that for punt-shooting they are like the fox for 
hunting, and show the finest sport of anything in England, 
I can only say that, out here, they are not difficult to work up 
to if any wind be blowing. No doubt they have a keen scent, 
and you must work them oz and not off a wind. 
Along the coast (and those killed there are very poor eat- 
ing in my opinion) they feed, I found, on all kinds of shell- 
fish, shrimps and the like, as well as on vegetable matter (a 
kind of green sea weed it seemed to me in one case) of various 
descriptions. 
Sometimes they are very reluctant to leave the broad in 
which you find them, and drive backwards and forwards well, 
affording very pretty shooting when numerous. They are not 
robust birds, and drop easily at distances at which, unless you 
happened to catch him in his long thin neck, a Pin-tail would 
laugh at you. At other times they are very wild, and go right 
away at the first shot. 
_ They are, on the whole, rather loquacious birds, and both, 
when feeding and at rest, when walking, swimming, and flying, 
often utter a shrill “ whew,” a sort of whistle, by which you may 
know them at any distance; it is not a clear full whistle like 
the Curlew’s, but a whistled cry, rather discordant when 
heard by day, but not without its charms when uttered at night 
by large numbers, mingled with the calls of many other species, 
and mellowed by distance and the multitudinous voices of winds 
and waters. 
Very often they are well flavoured enough, and might then 
rank high as table ducks, but their flesh has not unfrequently a 
muddy flavour; and those that I have shot on the sea coast 
have always had such a distinct “odour of brine from the 
ocean” as to render them very unpalatable. At home in Norfolk 
we used to consider Wigeons first-rate eating, but out here they 
must rank as only moderately good on the average. 
THERE IS no reason to suppose that this species ever breeds 
within our limits. It breeds in the highlands of Scotland,* 
* Mr. Brooks kindly sends me the following note of a nest of this species that 
he took in the Highlands :— 
‘‘T once took a nest of this Duck, with nine eggs, on one of the small islands in 
Loch Maddie, which is in Sutherlandshire, and about 20 miles fromthe North Coast 
