4 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



affords safety dining time of rest, or food when they are in 

 search of this. Thus they will frequent small dirty ponds or 

 big open broads ; feed on land as well as in water, and by day 

 as well as by night. In fact, I think many ducks are chiefly 

 made nocturnal by our persecution ; I rather fancy that the 

 mandarin is really the only true night bird in the family, as he 

 is habitually very quiet during the day even in captivity. The 

 food of mallard is pretty nearly everything : corn, herbage, roots, 

 worms, or any other small animal life, berries, acorns, &c., &c. ; 

 as long as there is plenty, they are not particular. They are 

 themselves almost always excellent, at any rate in India. 



They breed in Kashmir, in May and June, making a well- 

 concealed, down-lined nest among ground cover, as a rule ; now 

 and then among water-plants, rarely in trees ; the eggs are 

 usually eleven and their grey-green colour is well known. The 

 ducklings are clad in black and yellow down. The Indian 

 native names, besides Nilsir, are Lilg in Nepal, with the female 

 form Lilgahi. 



Spottcd-bill. 



Alias poecilorhyncJia. Garm-pai, Hindustani. 



The spotted-bill might well be called the Indian mallard ; it 

 is so like the female of that bird, or rather perhaps like some 

 abnormally coloured tame duck, that it would hardlj^ attract 

 attention at a distance, the only conspicuous colour point being 

 the broad snow-white streak along the sides of the dark hinder 

 back, wiiich streak is the outer webs of the innermost wing- 

 feathers. Close at hand, several detailed differences become 

 noticeable ; the brilliant and characteristic coloration of the 

 bill, twin-spotted w^ith scarlet at the forehead, jet-black in the 

 middle, and rich j-ellow at the tip ; the bright green instead of 

 blue wing-bar ; and the way in which the plumage, pale drab 

 speckled with black in the forequarters, gradually shades into 

 black at the stern, a style of coloration never matched among 

 all the many varieties of the tame duck. 



In young spotted-bills the characteristics of the species are 

 not so well developed ; the colours of the beak not being 



