SARCIDIORNIS MELANOTA 35 



" On the 30t]i August eighteen years ago I was wandering about 

 with my gun on the banks of a small brackish stream, near 

 Kharaghora, wlien a female Coml^-Duck got up and went off. I 

 fired and missed her. She flew on for some distance, and then 

 turned and came straight for me, and I killed her. She was handed 

 over to the cook in the course of the day, who came to say that he 

 had found an egg in her. It was ready to he laid, and there was no 

 appearance of any more in her, so I came to the conclusion that the 

 bird had made its nest, and laid all the eggs but one, when it had the 

 misfortune to fall in my way. Next day, I took two men with me, 

 and began to make a systematic search for its nest. There were 

 scarcely any trees in the neighbourhood, but many patches of rank 

 rushes, and among them I hunted long without success. At last 

 one of my men, who was on the other side of the stream, signalled 

 to me and pointed to a hole in the bank, which at that part was 

 quite perpendicular. I crossed, and, looking into the hole, found 

 sixteen eggs which exactly matched the one taken from the body of 

 the bird. They were lying on a bed of twigs and quill feathers of 

 some large bird, with a little lining of down and some fragments of 

 snake skin. The hole was about five feet from the ground, and 

 about two feet deep, the entrance being about nine inches wide by 

 about six deep. The hole went into the bank quite horizontally, and 

 there was nothing in the way of a ledge to alight on at the entrance, 

 so that the bird must have popped in as a pigeon does. Such 

 a feat fully justifies the opinion, that the Comb-Duck is not a 

 clumsy bird." 



The number of eggs laid seems to vary very much, but probably 

 a dozen or less is about the normal number, though Anderson 

 seems to have had from fifteen to twenty brought to him not 

 infrequently, and on one occasion found the enormous number of 

 forty eggs, of which thirty-nine were normal and one undersized. 

 He captured a female on this nest, and says that she was in an 

 emaciated condition, and therefore, he believed, authoress of the 

 whole forty eggs. 



Even this huge "clutch " of eggs has recently been beaten by one 

 found by Mr. T. E. Livesey, who obtained a nest with forty-seven eggs 

 in a large hole in a hollow tree about twenty-five feet from the 

 ground. This was at Kotah, Rajputana, and Mr. Livesey thinks 

 the eggs must have been the product of two or more ducks. A dozen 

 of the eggs were quite fresh, whereas all the rest appeared to have 

 been inculcated some ten to thirteen days. 



