6 INDIAN DUCKS 



" Tlie water was deep in places and the bottom very rough, 

 consisting of very sharp corals and often of a deceitful crust of salt 

 or saltpetre, under which the water was black and very deep. It 

 required much care to avoid these places, and it took us over an 

 hour to reach the nests. The nests themselves were flat plateaus 

 standing out of the water from tlu-ee to six inches, the water round 

 them being apparently very shallow ; but it was often the fatal 

 crust that caused this appearance, not the proper bottom. Many 

 of the nests were close together, and some of them connected by dry 

 ground. They were quite hard, so that one could stand on them, 

 and almost the only way of getting along was to jump from one nest 

 to another. The nest consisted of clay, hardened by the sun and 

 penetrated and encrusted with salt and pieces of coral, with a 

 distinct concavity in the centre." 



The eggs, nearly invariably two iu number, are long ovals, 

 generally a good deal pointed at the ends. The colour of the true 

 shell is a pale skim-milk blue ; but they are so encrusted with 

 a dense chalky covering that they appear, excej)t where stained, to 

 be pure white. They vary in size very considerably, but average 

 about 3'(j X '23 inches. 



General Habits. — Although so common in many parts of India, 

 Flamingoes are nowhere easy to get shots at, as they are extremely 

 wary and cute birds. All over their habitat shyness seems to be 

 their most prominent characteristic, and a close approach means the 

 result of a stalk as carefully made as if the stalker were after the 

 wildest kind of deer or antelope. A mistake made in attempting to 

 conceal one's-self, and the whole flock rise gracefully into the air and 

 remove themselves into safety. Typically their formation in flight is 

 distinctly anserine, not perhaps exactly V-shape, but more in the form 

 of a curved ribbon, the ends fluttering backwards and forwards as the 

 birds, more especially those at the two extremes, alter their position. 

 As a matter of fact, different writers have declared the bird's flight 

 to vary very much. Some have said that in no respect does the 

 flight of these birds resemble that of ducks or geese, but that, rising 

 in one indiscriminate mass, they continue their flight as they rise ; 

 others, on the other hand, say that the formation they assume is 

 nearly as regularly V-shaped as that adopted by geese. Both 

 accounts are doubtless right, and it seems probable that when 

 flying for a short distance only they adopt no special mode of 



