Some of the most tastefully and delicately colored birds are found among the ducks, and some of the rarest colors in the class are here met with.

We have already mentioned the pink spot behind the eye of the lobe-billed shoveler.

An Indian species, Wiodonessa caryophyllacea, remarkable as a fresh-water-duck with the wind- pipe of a sea-duck, is still more extraordinarily colored, both sexes having the head and the back of the neck of a beautiful, pale, rosy pink, with a small tuft of still brighter rosy on the top of the head in the breeding-season.

Mr Simson, in The Ibis for 1884, gives some interesting notes about this lovely duck, and tells how, during a shooting-party at Purneah, he secured a couple of specimens for Dr Jerdon as follows: Whilst going on I marked a small party of pink-headed ducks into one of the pools, and immediately told Jerdon that if he would leave the party and come with me I thought I could get a nice shot at his long-coveted birds.

So we took four elephants and started.