44 INDIAN DUCKS 



myself in 1886, when partridge-shooting in the Barpeta part of the 

 Kamroop district, and were missed' by me with both barrels at long 

 ranges. The bird is known and well described by the Cacharies, but 

 though I once heard a pair on the borders of the Cachar and 

 Naogang districts, I failed to get a sight of them. Outside these 

 limits it extends to the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Java. It 

 thus seems probable that it will be found to inhabit suitaljle localities 

 in Eastern Bengal, where, however, it is of extreme rarity ; but it 

 becomes less rare as we enter the Assam Valley, and is found in some 

 numbers throughout the Namba forest, south of Brahmapootra, and 

 the foot-hills and forest to the north of the same. In Eastern Assam 

 it l)ecomes comparatively common, and extends through Cachar and 

 the Indo-Burmese countries and Burma to the Malay Peninsula. 

 Mr. E. H. Young {in. Joe. cit.) says that he once shot a duck, which 

 he believes to have been of this species, in a tank in the Central 

 Provinces a few miles from forest-covered hills. The record is not, 

 of course, a certain one, and the locality is such an extremely 

 unlikely one that the identification was probably incorrect. 



Nidification. — There is nothing on record as regards this bird's 

 breeding in a wild state and I quite failed to induce my captive birds 

 to breed, though one duck which died — the only one I lost thus — 

 contained eggs larger than a hen's eggs. This was in the month of 

 June. The birds paired regularly every May, and the bases of the 

 drakes' bills became swollen and red, but the ducks never laid any 

 eggs during the five years they were kept. 



The only egg I have of this species is one which was taken in the 

 Cachar Hills by one of my trackers at the place where, as I record 

 further on, an attempt was made to have a pair of these birds driven 

 up for a shot. The nest was taken from a deep hollow, caused by 

 decay, in the first bifurcation in the trunk of a large tree standing 

 on the banks of the stream already described. The tree was a very 

 small thick one, and the hollow in which the egg was found was 

 said to be some twenty feet from the ground. The nest was 

 described as a mass of grass and other rubbish with a lining of 

 feathers and down, probably of the bird itself; though, as none 

 was shown me, I cannot be certain of this. 



In Radiya, whence I obtained a great number of birds and skins. 



