i n w m m
Mareca penelope, Linne.
YöXHacular ITames.—[Pea-san, Patari, N.-W. Provinces; Cheyun, Cheoon,
Nepal; Parow, S'uidh j Ade, Adln. Äahiagiri;
AM unable to define the distribution of the Wigcon
within our Empire with any degree of accuracy.
In the Himalayas it occurs in winter from Kashmir
to Bhutan. Throughout the Punjab, Sindh,* Rajputana,
the N.-W. Provinces, Oudh,i* Behar and the
Deltaic districts of Bengal, it is met with here and
there, during the cold season, very locally and capriciously
distributed. In Manipur, Godwin-Austen says that it is
" very common," but Mr. Damant did not include it in his list,
nor docs Colonel Graham mention it in his list of the ducks of
Darrang or Lakhimpur, nor have I as yet a single notice of its
occurrence an3rwhere in the valley of Assam or in Cachar,
Sylhct, Tippcrah or Chittagong, though Blyth says it has been
sent from Arakan ; and if he and Godwin-Austen are correct, it
must needs occur in all these.
Mr. Oatcs docs not mention it from Pegu, nor did Captain
Feildcn, or Wardlaw Ramsay, obtain it there, nor does Blyth
include it in his Burmese list ; but Mason docs, and Colonel
McMaster says, " more common in Burmah than in India," so
that I suppose it docs occur in Pegu. In Tcnasserim it docs
not occur, at any rate normally, though possibly a single bird
* As I recorded long ago. the Wigeon is very common on tlic Manchar L«akc,
but neither Day, nor myself, nor Watson ever saw it in any of the innumerable
dhonda of the Slnkar|)ore Cullectorate.
Elsewhere Butler found it far from common, and now Doig writes that even
"on the Eastern Nana—" that paradise for aquatic fowl—"it is comparatively
rare."
t Willing from the Lucknow Division, Mr. George Reid remarks :—
"The Wigcon is by no means uncommon, though it is, 1 think, rather erratic
in its wanderings, being much more common in some seasons than others. During
the past cold vvealhcr," for instance, when the jhils were much below their average
size, and many of the smaller ones altogether dry, I did not expect lo meet with it ;
but, as a mailer of fact, it was much more common than I had ever known it to be
before.
"The result of my experience is, in shurl, that the Wigcon is fairly abundant in
this division in some year;, and exceedingly scaicc in olhcis."