182 THE GADWALL.
now and then breathing his Arab and his ' long dogs' in
a spurt after a ' lomree,' as it returns from its night's rambles
to ' earth,'and inhaling with cheered spirits the cold breezes
of early morning, the horseman sees across the dappled sky
long lines of clamorous Geese or swift-flying Ducks, hurrying up
from the horizon and passing over head, as if fraught with
messages of comfort and encouragement from the colder
regions to the parched torrid zone. Some pass grandly overhead,
mere specks and lines far up in the blue vault, bound to
distant waters further south ; others with a satin rustle of their
rapid wings, cleave the air so closely by, that the observer
discerns the species as they rush past, and recognises familiar
forms associated with recollections of snowy moors and
ice-bound ponds 'at home' in far England."
Of all our welcome winter visitants few arc earlier, and none
come to us in greater numbers than the Gadwall. Further
south Wigeon—with us by no means plentiful—are more
numerous ; but in Upper India there are, as a rule, more Gadwall
in the bag after a good day's sport than any other species of
duck.
They arrive in the Himalayas during the latter half of
September, and gradually extend southwards; few reach the
plains (they are earlier in the submontane districts) before the
latter half of October; and in Sindh and further south it is
usually November before they are seen in any numbers. In
the south they leave by the end of March or early in April;
further north they are somewhat later (it depends a good
deal on the season), and both in Sindh and the Western and
North-Western Punjab, they are frequently shot during the
first week in May.
They are, I think, essentially fresh-water birds, (I have never
seen them really on the sea coast,) but having secured fresh
water, they do not seem to have much preference as to locality,
and you find them equally in the largest rivers and the smallest
hill streams, in huge lakes and small ponds, in open water (as
at the S.imbhar lake) where not a weed or rush is to be seen, and
in tangled swamps, where there is barely clear water enough to
float a walnut.
In rivers and in small pieces of water, the Gadwall commonly
occurs in small parties of from three to a dozen, but in large
lakes I have seen them in flocks of several hundreds.
On rivers they are generally to be seen snoozing on the
bank during the day, and then they commonly leave these
towards sunset for feeding grounds inland. In broads they
keep, if at all disturbed, well out of gunshot towards the
centre, sometimes in clear water, more often skulking in low
water weeds ; but in unfrequented places, they may, even during
the day time, be found walking on the shore or paddling in the
shallows round the edges of the tank, feeding busily with
their tail ends bolt upright, and the rest of them hidden by
the water.
Audubon by the way says:—"When in this position they
are most easily shot, and when hidden at the edge of a piece
of water I have often waited until the ducks commenced feeding,
and turned ends upwards when I have made a most effectual
pot shot amongst them." Let no one be misled by this pernicious
doctrine ; it is the very worst (and I may add most cruel)
position in which you can shoot at ducks. Of every ten ducks
thus wounded not more than three will be disabled, the remainder
will fly off, apparently uninjured, to die a lingering death,
their intestines riddled with shot holes, but their heads, necks,
wings and pectoral muscles untouched. I have a great admiration
for Audubon as an artist, but as a sportsman this passage
condemns him.
With us their chief staple of food, so long as they can get it,
is wild rice, (though in some parts they feed in cultivated rice
fields largely), and later the seeds, leaves and flower buds of all
kinds of rushes and aquatic plants. Insects and their larva
are also largely consumed, and sometimes small worms ; but I
have never found either frogs or fish in their stomachs, though
elsewhere these seem to form, commonly, a portion of their
regular diet.
They swim more lightly, and they fly far more easily and
rapidly than the Grey Duck or the Mallard. Hut like the
former they spring up with one bound up from land and water,
at a rather sharp angle, and usually rise thus for twenty yards
before sweeping off in a horizontal course. Their wings are long
and pointed, and make in passing through the air a peculiar
whistling sound similar to, though louder than, that made by
those of the Common Teal, by which they may be recognized as
they pass over head in flight shooting.
A great many of the ducks that frequent rivers by day,
come inland about dusk to feed in jhfls. Often for some little
time one particular piece of water, perhaps not half a dozen
acres in extent, attracts the Wild Fowl of the whole country's
side ; and when you find out such, and do not care, or have not
the plant for netting them, you may with three or four guns well
posted enjoy an hour's most profitable and exciting sport.
Baldwin gives a very good account of this, which I will quote :—
" At other times this lake was a favourite resort of mine
in the cold season. It was not far distant from the river
Betwah, and about sun down swarms of Wild Fowl, early in the
season especially, poured into the jhfl from the river to feed
all night. Knowing this habit, I often drove or rode out from
Jhansi of an afternoon to the spot, procured a boat from a
village hard by, with a man to guide it, and then made for a
creek at the far end of the lake, bordered on each side by high
rushes and reeds, and a favourite feeding ground for Wild