Rhodonessa caryophyllacea, Latham.
VomaCUlar NamOS.—[Saknal, (Bengali) ; Lal-sira, [Hindustani) ; Doomrar,
Nepal Terai ; Doomai", Domar, Tirhoot; ]
ESPITE strenuous efforts I have been quite unable
to clear up conclusively the question of the
distribution of the Pink-headed Duck.
I have no record of its occurrence in Ceylon or
the Madras districts south of Mysore, or in this
latter, or in the Konkan, Gujarat, Cutch, Kathtawar,
Sindh, Rajputana, the Central India Agency, or
Central Provinces.
In the Punjab I only certainly* know of its having been once
procured, and that near Delhi, in the easternmost portion of
the Province. In the Doab and Rohilkhand, of the North-
Western Provinces, it is so excessively rare that during nearly
twenty years' fowling I never once saw or heard of it; but
Anderson shot one female near Fatehpur, and a writer in the
Asian professes to have obtained them in the Dun and at
Bareilly.f In the western portions of Oudh it is outside the
* Major Alexander Kinloch writes:—"I shot two Pink-headed Ducks on the
banks of the canal leading to the Najjafgarh jail, near Delhi, during the winter of
1862-63, a n t ' a brother officer shot another."
Mr. R. W. Rumsby thinks that he once shot it on an exposed jhil south-west
of Umballa, and also in the Gurdaspur district; but on further investigation he is
clearly not certain of the species. No one else that I can hear of thinks even that
they have procured it in the Punjab. Adams never met with it there; neither
have I myself, nor any one of the very numerous friends who have collected
there for me (some of them for years and most exhaustively), so that I can only (at
present), consider it as a rare and accidental straggler during the cold season into the
easternmost portions of the Punjab, Cis-Satlej.
+ It is impossible to attach much weight to anonymous communications by writers
who admit knowing very little of birds. Still I quote what was said, quantum
valeat;—
'* Some time before Christmas, I was out shooting in the Dun, and accidentally
came across the very bird, I think, he means. There were only live, and I shot two of
them—a male and a female. Had I known that it would have been of any use I
would have preserved them, but now alas ! they have been eaten, for, as Jerdon says,
they are'excellent eating,'and I knew that. These birds I found in a large pool,
formed in the river Asun, made for irrigation purposes. It was a very cold morning,
for the night before the water froze in my tent. These Ducks I have come across
but seldom in the North-West Provinces, principally about Delhi and Bareilly. At
the former place I have often bagged 50 head of Ducks, but it was rarely I found one
or two of the pink-headed among the bag. I do not think I can be mistaken in the
bird, Although I am not a naturalist, I follow Jeidun's description."