wide a birth that they interfere very little with fowling. Geese
won't get up in our rivers when they are comfortable, while there
is nothing in sight within a quarter of a mile, let the Brahminies
preach never so wisely and long before you are within range
the Shclldrake's vaticinations have all been forgotten, and the,
whole flock is asleep again.
Although it starts with much noise, as if it had great difficulty
in rising, its flight, when once on the wing, is easy and
rapid, far more so than it at first appears, which leads to its being
continually missed, or hit behind, when crossing at long ranges.
It swims perfectly ; few birds look better on the water, and
when wounded dives and turns under water (though it cannot
keep under long) with great case ; but it is essentially a shore
rather than a 'water bird, and spends the great majority of its
time on land at and near the water's edge.
It walks well, quite as well as the Barred-headed Goose, but
like this, when undisturbed, is very slow and deliberate in its
movements. In walking it holds itself more erect than most of
the Ducks.
Although I have on rare occasions noticed them far inland
grazing with Geese, and more often paddling about in flooded
fields, still it is not, according to my experience, their habit to
wander far from the water's edge in search of food ; certainly
they do not with us regularly visit distant fields as Geese and
many Ducks do. Often encamped on the banks of rivers, I have
had a pair continuously within sight or hearing for several days.
No doubt they will graze on young grass and corn when this
comes down to the water's edge, and in jhfls gobble up various
kinds of water weeds and seeds, but tiny fry of fish, shrimps, and
all kinds of small land and water shells have proved the chief
food of most that I have examined. On the Jumna I continually
found their stomachs half full of small spiral univalve
shells. Tame ones I had were dead upon tiny frogs, and though
they are decidedly omnivorous, and do at times eat grain and
green shoots of all kinds, I think that, in India at any rate, the
animal element predominates in their diet.
It has long been charged against them that they feed on
carrion also. With Jcrdon, I confess, I have always doubted this.
In the Ganges and Jumna, where for many years I have watched
them, corpses, especially in a sickly season like the last, are not
rare, but I have never once seen them in close proximity to any
dead body. Mr. Rcid however says :—" I cannot say that I have
ever actually seen it eating carrion, though I have seen it associating
with vultures under very suspicious circumstances." And
Mr. H. J. Raincy writes:—" I have heard from several sportsmen
that it is a very foul feeder, and I myself on one occasion, in
1868, actually saw it eating carrion."
We must, therefore, I suppose, admit that it does sometimes,
on very rare occasions, thus disgrace itself; but it is certainly
quite exceptional, and in Upper India I should say that they
may be quite safely eaten, if necessary, without any qualms as
to their previous diet.
When better Ducks are procurable, of course, no one would eat
them, as the flesh is rather hard and dry, and cooked in the ordinary
way, they have a nasty, rank, somewhat fishy taste; but it
may be useful to mention that if siinuedbefore cooking, this taste
disappears, (it is not in the flesh, but in the skin and fat which
adheres to this,) and they then form a very tolerable addition
to a stew.
Their note is a very clear loud one, of two syllables, which
Pallas, Elliot, and others represent by the syllables a-oung.*
It seems with us during the cold season to be only uttered as an
alarm, or call to vigilance, and is heard not only during the day
but much more frequently during the night, throughout which
it resounds at intervals—a very pleasing and inspiriting call to
my ear, despite its piled-up associations of lost labour and sport
spoiled.
Jerdon gives us the classical native legend that the souls of
erring lovers, who have loved not wisely but too well, pass into the
forms of these Ducks, condemned thenceforth to pass the night,
the season of their transgressions, apart, on opposite banks of
some stream, each ever praying the other for permission to rejoin
them, and each ever compelled sternly to refuse.
" Chakwa, shall I come ?" " No Chakwi 1" " Chakwi, shall
I come ?" " No Chakwa 1"
This story, however, I fear belongs to a more poetical age than
the present, and I myself have never met with a native in
Upper India who knew of it except from Europeans. Perhaps
too the world is more virtuous, or celestial vigilance less keen, for
certain it is that in these degenerate days, except in the case of
very narrow rivers like the Hindon in Meerut, alike by day and
night, Chakwa and Chakwi are to be found both on the same
side of the water.
As the pairs seem most tenderly attached to each other, even
throughout the winter or non breeding season, one rarely straying
ioo yards from the other, and both being generally within
a circle of twenty paces, we may conclude that they pair for life.
This being so, and they being as we know from captive birds
anything but quarrelsome, it is difficult to believe that in the
breeding season the males often fight and even attack Drakes of
other species. Such, however, Prjevalsky asserts to be the case
in Mongolia, and I can only suppose that it is the young birds
who have not yet mated, or chance widowers, who thus seek to
display their prowess.
In India, though perhaps natives, like Europeans, have some
feeling against killing them, owing to their manifest affection for,
Turks call it au-gout."-(£•&,„• a,,d Buctlty-Ms, 1870. p. 339.)
R