quietly on towards a screening rock which margined the pond,
the pig-headed bear still following, as if there were no ants
nor berries save in my footsteps. When I had gained the
rock, I do not think he was above fifty yards from me. With
the sensation of a headlong rush impending upon my rear,
I was obliged to be as cool, cautious, and circumspect as if
nothing but the Gocse and I (par nobile fratrnm!) were at
issue. But I gained my point. I rounded the rock, and,
standing revealed on the edge of the pond, fired just as
Sarkidiotnis melanonotus spread his pinions to fly, and then
dropped writhing on the water. Almost simultaneously with
the report, a prodigious roaring bark or shout arose behind
me. I turned quickly, and had brought the remaining barrel
into position, when, not a little to my relief, the bear, after
a short rush forward, wheeled abruptly round, and, like a great
black bundle, went off pitching and tearing through the jungle
back to his den. * * * * * * *
" The young are on the wing by October, and for two or
three months keep with the parents. I have placed their eggs
under hens and domestic ducks, and hatched and reared the
young birds easily, but they never became thoroughly tame,
and escaped on the first opportunity, though they had, up
to the time of their flight, fed readily with the poultry in the
yard. They ran and walked freely, and could perch on anything
that did not require to be grasped; but they took to water much
less frequently than the goslings of Nettapus cotomaudelianus
(the Teal Goose), or Dendrocygna javanica (the Whistling
Teal), of which I bred several in my farmyard in Singhbhoom.
" It is an exceedingly silent bird ; indeed, I have never
heard it utter any sound. They repose chiefly on gravel
beaches by the side of clear still water, and when on the
wing can be readily distinguished at a long distance by their
flight, which is between the heavy flagging of the Wild Goose
and the rapid beats of the smaller Wild Fowl. The gander
is always conspicuous, appearing nearly double the size of
the others in the flock. Their flight is high and well sustained,
and after being shot at once or twice, they continue on their
course till out of sight, though almost sure to be found on
the same pond the next day. Like many other Water Fowl,
they appear to have certain tanks or ponds in which to feed,
and others for sleeping in. At night they roam over the
paddy stubble, and I have found their stomachs full of rice
during the harvest."
Clearly the habits of the birds do differ widely in different
parts of the country. I can only hope that between the two
somewhat discrepant accounts, we may have fairly exhausted
the peculiarities of this species.
I have not habitually shot these birds, because I hardly
think them worth the powder and shot, when other better
Water Fowl are about ; but just at the commencement of the
rains, when they are all over the country, and before they
begin to lay, they afford, in some parts of the North-Western
Provinces, in combination with the Whistling and Cotton Teal,
a few days' very pretty shooting.
It is only during the first burst of the monsoon, and before
they commence to lay, that it is right to shoot any of these
three species. The way in which some men go on shooting
them throughout the rains, whilst they have nests and helpless
young about, is much to be regretted.
THE NUKHTA lays in the North-West Provinces, where
alone I have taken its nest, in July, August, and occasionally
the first-half of September. I have received no detailed accounts
of its nidification elsewhere, but Major Mc.Inroy tells me
that it breeds to his knowledge, in the Bagriodkerc Tank in
the Chittaldoog district, and in some other disricts in Mysore,
and Mr. J. Davidson writes:—"In the Pinch Mahals, it was
very fairly common, a pair inhabiting nearly every one of
the small tanks which are scattered about everywhere. They
breed in the latter part of the rains ; the only nest I took
contained thirteen eggs, and was in the hollow top of a dead
mango tree, but I saw the young in very many places." Ramsay
says that it breeds in Tonghoo in July and August. In Ceylon
it is said to breed from January to March.
According to my experience, it generally nests in some
mango grove bordering a jhfl or broad, placing its nest, which
is composed of sticks, a few dead leaves, grass, and feathers,
at no great height from the ground, either in some large hole
in the trunk, or in the depression between three or four great
arms, where the main stem, (as it so often does in mango
trees,) divides at a height of from six to ten feet from the
ground.
I have found numerous nests thus situated. Once, and once
only, I found a nest in a regular swamp at one end of a jhi'l
in amongst a thick growth of sedge and rush, and in this
case no sticks had beeii used, but the whole nest, which was
a foot in diameter, and five or six inches in depth, was composed
of reeds and rushes, lined with a little dry grass and a few
feathers ; this nest had a good deep cavity, I dare say fully
four inches in depth, while those found in trees had central
depressions barely half this depth. Twelve is the largest
number of eggs that I have found, and I believe seven or
eight to be the usual complement, but in regard to this and
other points I may quote the following interesting remarks
by the late Mr. A. Anderson. He says :—
" This curious and handsomely-colored Duck deposits its
eggs in holes of old deciduous trees, and never, I should say,
in grass by the sides of tanks, &c, as stated by Jerdon. The
N