Was CLUCKING OR BAIKAL TEAL. 
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Querquedula formosa, Georgi. 
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Vernacular Names.—[None.] 
Ce : 
—— yy HIS species can, at present, only be considered an 
hfe extremely rare chance straggler within our limits. 
Further research may show that it is somewhat less 
rare than we mow suppose, but our existing infor- 
$k <igy mation only justifies its being classed as above. 
ase In 1844 Blyth obtained a single male in the 
“ Calcutta Bazaar. So far as I know, it has never 
subsequently been there procured, although this market has been 
pretty closely watched from that day to this, by the museum 
people, several professional taxidermists, Mr. C. J. Parker, 
myself, and others. 
Colonel McMaster, a reliable authority, tells us in his 
“Vagrancy Acts’ that he once obtained a specimen of (he 
believed) this species in some salt marshes in the Upper Circars. 
The only other decently-authenticated record of the occur- 
rence of this species in India, since 1844, until quite recently, 
is one by Mr. E. James, C.S., who had a water-colour painting 
of the head of a Teal shot in Sindh, which certainly was male 
QO. formosa. 
Lastly, in November 1879, Mr. W. N. Chill procured (and pre- 
served) a male of the Clucking Teal, some thirty miles south- 
_west of Delhi. 
Besides this, I have received several statements from different 
quarters as to Q. formosa having been seen or heard (the cry, no 
doubt, is peculiar) in the Central Provinces on the Nerbudda in 
May, in the Deccan during the early part of the cold season, &c., 
and one or two correspondents are swe that they have sot them. 
But no specimens have been preserved; and while quite agreeing 
with the worthy who remarked—“what’s hit is_ history ; 
what’s missed is mystery”’—I go further, and only acknowledge 
in the case of most Indian sportsmen, as Azstory, species of 
which specimens have been preserved. 
Outside our limits, its normal range appears to be Asia, 
excluding the Mongolian deserts, east of a line drawn from 
Canton to the mouths of the Yenesay. It is widely diffused 
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