duck to arrive in the country, and has frequently been seen
early in August." Mr. Reid's remarks have been already quoted,
{note, p. 215!, and there is no doubt that with us in the north,
while some occasionally appear earlier, considerable flights arrive,
as a rule, towards the close of August or early in September.
These, however, generally pass on (even in Calcutta they arc in
the market early in October), and it is not until the latter part
of October in the north, and well into November further south,
that the mass of the birds have arrived.
During December, January, and February they arc comparatively
scarce in Upper India, but they become again plentiful in
March, and during the first half of April, owing to the influx of
the great bulk of the birds which wandered further south.
Shortly after this* the great majority leave us, but in all years,
alike in the north and south, a few birds remain well in to May.
As I shall notice further on there are grounds for supposing that
some few may remain to breed within our limits, but such cases
must be quite exceptional.
According to my experience, the Blue-winged Teal almost
exclusively frequents good-sized broads and jhils or wide
swamps, containing plenty of aquatic herbage. They arc rare
even on large lakes, like the Sambhar, where this is wanting ;
they are very rare in our large rivers, and still more so on
small village ponds.f
I have very seldom seen them in the day feeding in fields,
but I know that at nights they come in some parts of the
country in such crowds into paddy fields as to destroy acres of
* Mr. Cripps, writing from Eureedpore, remarked : — " Swarms in the cold weather
in all the m u l l bhils about the country. During the day they used to remain in the
Ganges, and at night come to the interior to feed. The Ganges from my factory
was about 20 miles. By the 16th April not a bird was to be seen, all having
migrated."
\ In this and numberless other cases, I find my experience here utterly at
variance with what European writers have recorded. Thus Diesser says, epioting
Baron Droste :—
'•They frequent the fresh water or salty ponds and rivulets on the islands; and
I know no instance of this duck visiting the shores. They are very tame, ami soon
get accustomed to the sight of human beings, and are satisfied with the smallest
sheets of water. When unmolested they can lie approached within a few paces
without Hying up " Now, to render these remarks applicable to India, they must be
interpreted, like dreams, by contraries.
They never hardly frccpicnt mere ponds or rivulets, but they are not uncommon
on the shores. They aie never very tame, and I know no instance of their accustoming
themselves to the sight of human beings ; on the contiary, they peisisteutly
shun places which human beings closely frequent. Tiny pieces of water they
Utterly avoid. Even where no gun has ever been tired, they will not let you walk up
within shot openly. You can stalk them easily behind bushes, cattle, Sx , but let
them see that you are a man, and they certainly will not allow you to get within
thirty paces of them.
I do not, for one moment, doubt the correctness of Baron Droste's remarks, as
regatds his f>ait vf the-.voild; I only desire equal credence from European writers
when, as in many cases lias, I find, happened, I have directly traversed the statements
of their favourite authorities. 1 can only say that my remarks are the results ol
many long years'personal observations here, and that whether in accord with what
has been recorded elsewhere, or not, they do represent what are the facts here.
crop at one visit. Along the Mekran Coast, and in many places
along the Stndh and Bombay Coasts, you find them in secluded
salt-water creeks, where they seem just as much at home as in
inland waters.
They are not very wild or wary ; it is generally easy enough
to get shots at them with a little precaution ; they are easy to
work up to in a punt, but they are yet not tame and familiar like
the Common Teal, and do not, like this, habitually affect pools,
where men constantly come and go, and in close proximity to
human habitations. Generally they keep in flocks, rarely less
than a dozen are found together, and most commonly from fifty
to several hundreds are seen in a bunch. Few fowl sit closer
or straggle less, few offer more effective big-gun shots.
Their flight is rapid, though less so than that of the Common
Teal, direct and with far fewer sudden turns and twists. They rise
rapidly and easily from the water, but not very perpendicularly.
I have so seldom seen them on dry land, that I can speak with
no certainty about this ; but once when emerging from a dense
rccd bed through which I had been carefully creeping in order to
get a shot at some Shelldrakes that I knew to be paddling
about somewhere near the margin, I surprised a party of Garganeys,
all asleep, on a patch of turf some ten yards square,
almost entirely surrounded by high reeds ; they seemed to me
to rise very clumsily, and I made a tremendous bag with two
barrels as they flustered up.
They swim well, far more rapidly when pressed than the
Common Teal, and dive better. They arc altogether, I should
say, more vigorous and less agile birds.
Their food is chiefly vegetable ; tender shoots and leaves of
water-plants, seeds, bulbs and corms, and slender rhizomes of
rushes, sedges and the like form the bulk of their diet—to
which at times large quantities of rice, wild and cultivated,
must be added. Besides this they eat occasionally all kinds of
insects and their larva, small frogs, worms, fresh-water shells, and
the like ; but, as a rule, this forms inland in India, a very small
proportion of their food, and no traces of anything but vegetable
matter have been observable in the stomachs of many that I
examined. On the sea coast it is different. There I found
shrimps, delicate shells, and other animal substances in abundance
in their gizzards, and birds shot in such localities are
anything but first-rate eating.
Their call is a harsh quack, very loud for the size of the bird ;
they are not garrulous, and I have never heard any other note
from wild birds ; but in our tealeries, they chatter, like all the
other ducks so confined, in a marvellous manner on the least
disturbance.
Whether it is only because one habitually meets them in such
large flocks, or whether is really peculiar to them, I do not know ;
but certainly one associates the over-head flight of this species