pond (perhaps one introduced there), but the rest of his specimens
came from the Tcrai, and Scully did not observe it in
Nepal.
It is not, I think, a hill bird, and nowhere, I believe, ascends
the hills to any considerable elevation. Fairbank observed it
at Mahablcshwar, but it has not been noticed at Abu or Ooty,
or on the Pulneys.
Outside our limits it occurs in Independent Burma and
Siam, throughout the Malay Peninsula, in Sumatra, Java, and
Borneo. A specimen, said to differ only from this species in
the length of the tarsus, is in the British Museum, brought by
Clapperton and Denham, from Lake Tchad in Central Africa,
but I am not prepared, without further information, to accept
this latter as a habitat of the present species.
THE WHISTLING TEAL is essentially a tree Duck ; it must
have trees as well as water, and hence its entire absence from
some pieces of water, in treeless parts of Rajputana for instance,
where other species of Ducks abound during the cold season.
Generally it is more common in well-wooded than in comparatively
bare, open country. Yet it prefers level or fairly level
tracts to very broken hilly country, and again, though in some
places, e.g., at Tavoy, it may be met with in rivers in enormous
flocks, it, as a rule, prefers moderate-sized lakes and ponds to
rivers.
Owing to these preferences, there are many tracts, as for
instance, portions of the Deccan, where it is extremely rare.
In the Southern Konkan it is almost unknown. Mr. Vidal tells
me that he has only once seen it in the Ratnagiri District, and
that was in February on the Washishti River near Chiplun.
I have already alluded to its migratory habits. I may add
that it seems to be altogether a permanent resident only in
well-watered, well-wooded, and well-drained, districts ; in the
drier districts the majority are only monsoon visitants ; in the
more swampy tracts the majority come only for the dry season.
But although the majority gad about like fashionable folks,
spending one season here and the other there, a few seem to be
everywhere (except in the western portions of the range of the
species), truly permanent residents. Of course this must depend
upon the supply of food available, but we know too little as yet
of the details of such matters to be able to trace this partial
migration to its exact causes.
It is about weedy tanks and swamps that one mostly meets
with the Whistling Teal, in pairs during the breeding season, but
in flocks of from twenty to two thousand (according to the size
of the swamp or broad which they inhabit), during the cold
season and spring. Like the Cotton Teal—and both species are
commonly seen in the same tanks—they arc very tame and
familiar birds, frequenting villngc ponds, and living on the trees
surrounding such, even on trees growing inside the enclosures
of cottages. They are rather dull birds, slow on the wing and
easily shot, and they have a habit of circling round and round
the gunner, when one of their number has been shot, that often
proves fatal to the greater portion of the flock, when it unfortunately
falls under the tender mercies of " butchers." When
absolutely required for food, a pair or so may be shot, but they
are indifferent eating, and fly so poorly that they really afford
no sport. Indeed in many places they are so tame that they
sit unconcernedly on some overhanging branch looking down
at the gunner, who has to throw stones at them, before they
will give him a chance of a flying shot.
They swim and dive extremely well. Indeed a winged bird
in a good large pond, full of holes, into which the pursuers
plump without warning, will afford admirable exercise and
amusement to a dozen beaters while you smoke a sympathetic
cigar on the bank in the cool shade of some huge peepul.
They are not very often seen, I think, on land, but they walk far
better than the Cotton Teal. I have seen them feeding like Geese
on short fine grass, and Mr. Cripps says :—"This species is often
seen on freshly-ploughed paddy fields, evidently feeding on the
grains of paddy that have been left above ground after
sowing."
Certainly when not on the wing they are more commonly
either feeding in the water or resting on trees. There are
differences in their habits, however, according to season and
locality. During the breeding season they spend much more
of their time in trees, at any rate where they breed on these,
than at other times, the female, either sitting on the eggs or
at the edge of the nest on the alert against crows and other
robbers, and the male on some neighbouring branch with
one eye on the water and the other on his mate, whom
he is always ready to assist against all, but human, assailants.
I once saw a good large half wild village Cat spring down on
a Duck, which was sitting on her nest, in a broad four-pronged
fork of a mango-tree. The Duck did not whistle in the
usual manner; she positively screamed ; in a second, the
Drake dashed at the Cat, and to my surprise down came a
Black Crow [C. macrorhynckus), not as any one would have
thought to steal the eggs during the confusion, but to assail the
Cat with claws and beak as if his own homestead had been
attacked. In less time than it takes to describe, the Cat was
squalling in her turn, and fled up one of the branches pursued
closely by the Drake and Crow, who were immediately joined
by another Crow, and the three made it so hot for pussy
that she sprung down to the ground, where my Dogs, aroused
by the uproar above, (the noise those two Crows made was
astounding) were awaiting her, and before I could interfere,
and before she quite recovered the jump of some 35 or 40 feet,