Sarcidiornis melanonotus, Pennant.
(Burmese), Pegu\ Bowkbang, (Karen).
T one season or another, the Nukhta* is found througiiout
the greater portion of the Empire. But it docs
not ascend the hills anywhere, and does not occur
in Kashmir, Kullu, Kumaon or Nepal. I do not
know of its occurrence in the Punjab, Trans-Sutlej,
or in Sind, except as a rare straggler to the easternmost
portions. I have no record of its appearance in
Sylhet, Cachar, Tippera, Chittagong or Arakan.*f* It does not,
to the best of my belief, extend, at present, to any part of
Tenasserimt proper, and it seems doubtful whether it is found,
except perhaps as a rare and accidental straggler, in the
Western Sub-Ghat littoral, viz.t the South Konkan, the Malabar
Coast, and Travancore.
In Ceylon and the entire Peninsulaj east of the Western
Ghats, in the Central Provinces, Gujarat, Cutch, Kathiawar,
* Jerdon calls this the " Black-backed Goose;" but it is a Duck and not a Goose,
and I therefore reject his name 'which is calculated Lo create erroneous conceptions.
+ Tickell however says *' The Knobbed Goose is tolerably common off the
alluvion in Bengal, throughout the central provinces of India, and in Arakan,
Burma, and Tetxasscrim.
In Aracan it very likely does occur, and in Tonghoo, a district of Pegu, now
included in Tenasserim, we know that it does occur ; but we have never obtained a
trace of it in any part of Tenasserim proper, in fact in any part of what was
Tenasserim when Colonel Tickell knew the province. Vet Tickell distinctly says,
" I found them in Tenasserim^ but nowhere numerous ; also in Burma and Aracan
and we can only surmise that during the 30 odd years that intervened between his and
our ornithological explorations of Tenasserim, the bird has ceased to visit this province.
% Note however that in the southernmost districts of Madras, in fact those
south of Mysore, it woidd seem to be rare. Mr. Albert Theobald has shot over
and collected in most of these for years, but he writes :—
" I have only seen this Duck in this Collegal Taluq of Coimbatore, and not to
the best of my belief further south. It comes here about December, and leaves
again in February or March. It is very rare here, only four or five pairs coming
in every year.
" It is generally found in any small lake or jhil during the day time, but at
nights they are only found in paddy fields where they go lo feed on the grain,
leluining early to the lakes, where they keep near the reeds growing at the
borders of the water. They are not wavy birds and are easily shot.