192 THE TIN-TAIL.
It is not common, therefore, to make a good bag* of Pin-tail
with a small gun. I cannot remember ever bagging a dozen
with a shoulder gun in a day. On the other hand, though wary,
they can be worked up to in a punt ; they go in large flocks, and
sit close, so that no species yields heavier bags with a swivel.
No duck, again, is more readily caught by both fall and standing
nets. They are a little troublesome to work up to the latter,
being shy and suspicious birds, but they rise less easily, and
at a lower angle than Mallard or Gadwall, and can be safely
flushed at a greater distance from the net, and there is no
duck of which you can make as heavy a haul with the standing
net as of Pin-tail.
They swim moderately well; they look, perhaps, owing to
their long arching necks and raised tails, better than any other
species when afloat; but when winged they do not swim rapidly,
and are such poor divers that they are very soon tired out
and captured.
Feeding, as they commonly do, almost exclusively by night, it
is rare to see them doing more than nibbling the water weeds
around them ; but in very unfrequented waters I have,even during
the day time, but especially about sunset, repeatedly seen large
flocks of them feeding energetically in the shallows, their long
tails bent downwards almost parallel to the water, and the whole
anterior halves of their bodies invisible, beneath this. I especially
noticed that, while every individual of a party of Mallard or
Gadwall may be thus seen, head under at the same time,
a certain number of Pin-tail always remain on the guivive, whilst
the rest are ducking under. Occasionally I have seen a portion
of a flock, both early in the morning and towards evening,
feeding on the land, on grassy sward close by the margin of some
jln'l, the rest of the flock feeding close at hand in the water.
They walk very freely, but not so lightly as the Gadwall, and
with their necks outstretched in front of them, and their
tails raised, are not, in my opinion, thus seen by any means to
the best advantage.
Their food is very varied, although, like most of our wild fowl,
wild rice, so long as it lasts, is their main staple. But besides
this, worms, small shells, both land and water, grass and aquatic
plants, bulbous roots and corms, and insects of all kinds, arc found
in their stomachs. I think that with us they must particularly
affect shells, because in no less than three cases (out of twenty-
* Since this was written, I have met with the following remarks by Captain
Baldwin, which I quote as being directly opposed to my own experience : -
"A friend and I killed nineteen couple of duck one day off the Lowqua Lake,
ooposite Tezpoor on the Brahmaputra, and more than half the birds were Pin-tails.
" It is, generally speaking, an easy bird to approach, even when feeding on open
p°a11 I can'Sy'is, that in Upper India I have found it (except when basking and
as ft thinks hidden, in a clump of water weeds) the wariest of birds, not only to
approach in the ordinary way, but with a regular punt, stcundem artcm.
THE PIN-TAIL. 193
two) I have noted, "stomach almost entirely full of small fragile
fresh-water shells," and in five others I have recorded shells as
amongst the food found on dissection in the gizzards.
The Pin-tail, when undisturbed, is a silent bird by day, and
rarely utters any sound, even when feeding, though I have,
when lying up pretty close to them, heard a little low chatteration
going 011, more like the low clucking of hens than anything
else. But when alarmed by day, and pretty constantly by
night, they utter their peculiar soft quack,—a note such as one
might expect a Mallard, not quite sure whether he meant to
speak or not, to emit—quite different from the sharp quack
of the Gadwall, softer and less strident than that of the
Mallard, but still not at all feeble, on the contrary audible at
a great distance.
I could single out the Pin-tail's quack at any time, and
yet I am wholly unable to explain, in words, its peculiar and
characteristic tone.
On the whole, I think, that next to the Mallard the Pin-tail
is the best duck for the table in India, for here (it is different
at home) I have never come across one with a fishy or
unpleasant flavour.
THE PIN-TAIL cannot, I believe, breed with us. Its nidification
range is far more northern ; and while in many places it breeds
well within the Arctic Circle, it rarely breeds, I think, much
south of the 50th degree North Latitude.* It lays in May
or June according to locality; the nest is placed on the ground
generally in marshes,and not on the margins of large pieces of
water. It is made of long pieces of bleached grass, rush, twigs or
anything that comes to hand, and is lined with down from the
mother's breast mingled with a few feathers.
The eggs, from six to nine in number, arc rather small for
the size of the bird ; they are regular ovals, smooth, but with
little gloss, with a pale yellowish green tinge. An egg from
Finland, collected by Wollcy, measures exactly 2'0 by 15,
and this too Dresser gives as the average of the eggs he got
in Finland, but he speaks of others from Jutland measuring
2'22 by I"4,
Tins DUCK varies very widely in dimensions and weight, the
former, especially in the case of the males, owing to the different
degrees in which the tails are developed.
* It breeds in Northern Yarkand about Maralbashi. Dr. Scully says :—
" The Pin-tail Duck was occasionally seen near Yarkand in March, but only one
specimen (a female) was obtained. Two experienced Yarkandi bird-catchers gave
me the following information about this species :—The male bird is ala. i.e., pied
black (or dark coloured) and white ; it is a seasonal visitant only to Eastern Turkestan,
arriving in spring and migrating to Efindostan at the begiuning (if winter, and
it breeds ia the neighbourhood of Maralbashi, laying from ten to twelve eggs."
At