NIL
Tadorna cornuta, S. G. Gmelin.
Vernacular Names.—[Shah-chakwa, Sufaid-surkhab, Upper India; Nil-
Sind; Mckaz ( 3 ) , Alikaz (9 ), Shah Moorgal.ee, AStal/; 1
"?IIE Common Shclldrakc or Shieldrakc is a somewhat
rare visitant to many parts of our Empire, north of
the 22nd parallel of North Latitude. I have it from
the mouths of the Indus, the Coasts of the Gulf of
Cutch, from near Nowanugger, Kathiawar, and from
close to Calcutta, and Mr. H. Fasson writes that it
occurs in Chittagong. I have no record as yet of
its occurring anywhere southwards of these localities.
Northwards, it has been observed in Sind, on the Eastern
Ndra, at the Manchar Lake, and one or two other of the
larger broads. It occurs occasionally, chiefly on the larger
pieces of water, almost throughout the Punjab, the North-
West Provinces and Oudh, and has been observed in several
of the districts of Lower Bengal. But it has never been
recorded from any part of Assam, Chota Nagpur, the Central
Provinces, the Central India Agency, or Rajputana, though it
may not improbably prove to straggle into one or all of these,
especially Assam. For, though it is not found in the Central
or Western Himalayas,* Hodgson notices it as a rare visitant,
on passage, to the Nepal Valley.
Outside our limits it occurs in Eastern Tibet, and throughout
Mongolia as a summer visitant, and again on the Chinese Coast
(whence Swinhoe notices it from Amoy, Formosa, Takoo, and
Pekin), and in Japan, as a winter migrant. It does not range
far north in Asia or beyond the southern portions of Dauria.
It has not been recorded from Yarkand, but breeds throughout
Eastern Turkestan, and is common on the Caspian. It is not
rare about Kabul and Kandahar, and has been seen once or
twice in Beluchistan, of course as a winter visitant only, as it
* Strange as it may seem, it being common in Kabul, no one has ever yet observerl
it in any of the Kashmir Lakes, nor have I seen or procured it in or from any part of
the Himalayas west of Nepal.