4 INDIAN DUCKS 



Bengal is a decidedly rare bird. I -have once seen it during the 

 cold weather in the Sundarbands, and there are a few other recorded 

 instances. In the widely-known and shot-over Chilka Lake, in Orissa, 

 it is fairly frequently met with, though I hear less frequently and in 

 smaller numbers than formerly, probably owing to the lake being 

 more accessible to sportsmen now-a-days than it used to be. Else- 

 where in Bengal it is only a casual Hock that is seen in the cold 

 weather. 



Nidification. — Legge seems to have thought that the Flamingo 

 bred in Ceylon ; but his ideas on this subject have never been con- 

 firmed, though it is more than possible that he was correct, as Mr. 

 W. N. Fleming reports from Tuticoriu that the Flamingo is fairly 

 common throughout the district, and that a large flock, numbering 

 some 300 birds, was still in the neigbourhood of that place in 

 July, 1898. 



His Highness the Eao of Cutch is the only observer who has 

 actually found a regular nesting-place of the Flamingo within Indian 

 limits. In a letter to Mr. Lester he recorded that he had obtained 

 some twenty eggs and two young from some place in the Eunn of 

 Cutch. 



Later he writes : — 



" It appears that they breed fairly regularly on the Eann, except 

 in seasons of scanty rainfall, when there is very little or no water 

 lying on that tract, as has been during the recent years of scarcity 

 and famine, or when the rains do not arrive until very late in the 

 year. Their nests, which are built of mud, whilst the earth is wet, 

 are not made on any particular island ; but the birds seem to select 

 ground slightly higher than the surrounding country, and covered 

 with shallow water on all sides to a considerable distance from the 

 spot selected, evidently to be free from danger from jackals, wolves, 

 etc. It would be worth knowing if the Flamingoes in seasons which 

 they find unfavourable for nesting on the Rann seek other safer 

 breeding-grounds, and, if so, whether they breed then on the Mokran 

 coast or elsewhere, or whether in such years they do not breed at all. 

 A few of the birds are always to be seen in these parts. This year a 

 large number of eggs and three young birds not fully fledged have 

 been brought to me. The place on the Rann where the nests were 

 found is about eight miles to the north-east of the Pachham, and 

 here the nests were to be seen in hundreds. 



" A photograph was taken on the Gth November, 1903, but the 

 birds breed earlier than that. The eggs found on the nests were all 

 bad ones." 



