File:Indian sporting birds (1915) (14563911688).jpg

Identifier: indiansportingbi00finn (find matches)
Title: Indian sporting birds
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Finn, Frank, 1868-1932 Hume, Allan Octavian, 1829-1912 Marshall, Charles Henry Tilson, 1841-
Subjects: Birds -- India Game and game-birds -- India
Publisher: London : Francis Edwards
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ej^es being dark grey and not conspicuous.Moreover she is not nearly so richly coloured as the drake, beingespecially clouded with blackish about the head. The coloration,however, is of the same general type, both giving the impressionof a small dark duck, showing no white except on the stern whenon the water, but displaying a conspicuous amount on the wingswhen in flight. Young birds are not rich dark brown, but dirtylight brown, much like the colour of brown paper, certainly notthe gingery orange shown in the background figure in Humesplate. In all, the upper parts are darker and devoid of red tinge. This is not only the commonest but the smallest of Indianpochards, seldom weighing much over a pound and a quarter,hixcept in Kashmir, it is only a cold-weather bird, coming inlate in October. When in residence, they prefer before every-thing water w^ell covered with weeds, or with plenty of rushes;just those places, in fact, which other diving-duck tend to steer Aythya vyrora on plate.
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o <oo WHITE-EYED POCHARD 29 clear of. But this species likes cover, and also packs much lessthan ducks generally, half a dozen being a far more likely partyto come across than half a hundred, exiremely numerous as thebirds are in certain districts. They also often go in pairs or evensingly, and in any case have a habit of getting up independentlylike quail, which of course endears them to the sportsman onaccount of the number of chances he gets. The flight alsoresembles a quails in being low as a rule, and often terminatingin a sudden stop ; it is fairly fast, though the bird startsawkwardly, rather like a coot, which in some ways it resemblesin habits, just as the goosander does a cormorant; so distinct arethe ways of ducks in reality, though people seem to look on themas monotonous uninteresting birds. Winged birds are notoriousfor their skill in taking cover and disappearing altogether. It must not be supposed, however, that the white-eye isconfined to weedy water; it is a most

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