it is out-and-out the commonest Duck. I killed from a dozen
to twenty daily, and might easily have killed double that
number. They were, comparatively speaking, very tame, and
I used to drift down on them in a little boat to within thirty
or forty yards, as they sat in small parties asleep at the water's
edge, bagging two or three as they sat, and knocking over
one and sometimes two more, as they rose, with the second
barrel. In the Indus, too, they were equally abundant but
more wary, as people continually shoot at them from the
steamers, and in most of the larger inland waters of Sindh I
met with them in great numbers. At first starting, the Mallard
lies better, and affords better sport than any of the other Ducks,
and when you first go on to a broad that has not previously
been shot that season, the Mallard keep continually rising,
pretty close to the boat, from under the boughs of water-surrounded
tamarisk trees and clumps of rush, affording beautiful
shots."
As regards their habits, it is useless attempting to repeat, in
probably less accurate language, what Macgillivray, our greatest
British field-ornithologist, has already told so admirably ; and
I shall just quote his remarks, only adding that time after
time, both at home and out here, I have verified every word. He
says:—
" Marshy places, the margins of lakes, pools and rivers, as
well as brooks, rills and ditches, are its principal places of resort
at all seasons. It walks with ease, even runs with considerable
speed, swims, and on occasion dives, although not in search
of food. Seeds of graminea; and other plants, fleshy and
fibrous roots, worms, mollusca, insects, small reptiles, and fishes,
are the principal objects of its search. In shallow- water, it
reaches the bottom with its bill, keeping the hind part of the
body erect by a continued motion of the feet. On the water it
sits rather lightly, with the tail considerably inclined upwards ;
when searching under the surface it keeps the tail flat on the
water ; and when paddling at the bottom with its hind part up,
it directs the tail backward. The male emits a low and rather
soft cry between a croak and a murmur, and the female a
louder and clearer jabber. Both on being alarmed, and especially
in flying off, quack ; but the quack of the female is much
louder. When feeding, they arc silent; but when satiated they
often amuse themselves with various jabberings, swim about,
approach each other, move their heads backward and forward,
"duck" in the water, throwing it up over their backs, shoot
along its surface, half-flying, half-running, and in short, are
quite playful when in good humour. On being surprised or
alarmed, whether on shore or on water, they spring up at once
with a bound, rise obliquely to a considerable height, and fly
off with speed, their hard-quilled wings whistling against the
air. When in full flight, their velocity is very great, being
probably a hundred miles in the hour. Like other Ducks they
impel themselves by quickly repeated flaps, without sailings or
undulations."
In this country, where so few sportsmen use or know, or care
to know, how to use a punt and swivel gun, there is really little
to be said about shooting wild fowl. In rivers you either drift on
to them in a boat or approach by land under cover of some
kind—a very easy matter in narrow rivers with high perpendicular
banks. In broads, you similarly creep within shot, or
in some native dug-out, push through the rushes, getting many
good, but usually mostly long shots, or preferentially ( for the
first dozen shots generally rouse the majority of the best
Ducks,) lie up in some rush bed or some reedy isthmus between
two pieces of water and have the fowl driven over you by beaters.
This is undoubtedly excellent sport, requiring, if any real
success is to be attained, a true aim and a hard-hitting gun,
and resulting, to practised hands, in enormous bags.
Butler gives an account of one good day he had. He says :—
" I remember upon one occasion making an extraordinarily
good bag upon a tank about 35 miles north of Ahmedabad.
There were two of us out, and we took up our stands at about
2-30 P.M. At 5-30 P.M. we discontinued shooting, and sent
coolies into the water to collect the dead and wounded. I laid
my birds in rows as they were brought out of the water,
arranging them according to species, and a more imposing sight
I never saw.
"There were eighty birds in all, representing fifteen different
species, and every one of them was shot separately and on the
wing, that is to say, there was no firing into the brown of big
flocks closely packed on the water or mud banks, resulting
in the death of half a dozen or so at one shot ; the birds, of
which there were thousands, were kept constantly on the
wing by coolies beating at both ends of the tank, and as they
passed our screens, which were erected upon islands in the
middle of the tank, we selected single birds to shoot at. We
lost a great many wounded birds that dived immediately they
fell on the water and were seen no more. My friend shot 47,
which, added to mine, made a total of 127 ducks in three hours'
shooting—a bag, which I imagine, few sportsmen have beaten."
Very few of these probably were Mallard, but in small gun
shooting, the species makes in most cases little difference, while
with the punt gun, in which you must get a sitting shot, or one
just as the birds rise, the species makes all the difference in
the world, and success mainly depends on a thorough knowledge
of the manner in which each species of fowl will comport itself
on your approach. Some draw together and rise en masse,
and these should only be taken when a foot above the water ;
others,thoughdrawing together, rise in succession, and these are
best fired at just before they rise. Others again separate ou