(50 INDIAN DUCKS 



Butler reports it in his list of Andaiuao birds as having been 

 obtained by G. Wardlaw-Kamsay Tind Captain Winiberley. 



Mr. V. J. Mitchell shot a specimen of this little Teal at Holdra 

 jheel in Kashmir in October, 1914. 



Nidification. — The only district in which 1 have personally found 

 and taken their nests in any number is Eungpore. I was there in 

 1885 for three or four months in the rains, and I am sure that at 

 that time a short walk of two or three miles in any direction, along 

 any road, would have been productive of three or four nests of 

 Cotton-Teal, as well, perhaps, of one or two of whistling-teal. 

 The district and station roads are well off for fine large trees, 

 forming complete avenues on many of them, and most of them have 

 also large drains on either side, or else a succession of borrow-pits 

 take their place. These, long disused, have naturally become well 

 covered with weeds and grasses, and form grand hunting-grounds 

 for this little duck, whilst the numerous hollows in the old trees 

 which overhang them afford sites for building in. I think they 

 generally select hollows of some size in the trunk of the tree itself, 

 and at about (J to 12 feet from the ground, and this hollow they 

 line well and abundantly with twigs, grass, and feathers. 1 have 

 twice known as many as '22 eggs laid, once 18, and once 10, but, 

 normally, I should say they lay any number from 8 to 14, 10 being, 

 perhaps, the number more often laid than any other. I have never 

 known them make any other sort of nest than this already described, 

 but others have recorded quite different stories regarding their 

 nidification. Blewitt, writing from Jhausi, says: — 



" It breeds in July and August. Just above the village of 

 Borogaon is a large lake, from which several eggs of this goslet \\ ere 

 brought. The eggs were collected iti two months on different 

 occasions, ft makes a semi-lioating nest on the water among the 

 rushes or lotus weeds, of weeds, grass, etc., all together, filled up 

 several inches above the water-level. 



The many boatmen of this lake stated that this goslet breeds 

 there every year, and at the Salbuhat Lake also the boatmen 

 affirmed the same." 



I have found nests quite low down, in holes in trees only just 

 above water-level in fact, but have never taken them from a hole at 

 any height from the ground, and cannot now recall to mind any 



