G'2 INDIAN DUCKS 



difficulty, and fell into the water with some force. I do not vouch 

 for this man's story being true, but give it for what it is worth, and 

 believe it myself. 



They breed in Bengal in late June, July, and August, the end of 

 July principally. In Ceylon they are said to breed much earlier, but 

 there, of course, the weather arrangements are different, and birds 

 of all kinds have to make their nesting-time suit accordingly. 



The eggs are true duck eggs, though more spherical than most, 

 much like those of Dciidroctjgna in shape, texture, and polish. Gates 

 calls them minatures of those of the Comb-Duck, but says they are 

 less glossy. 



They vary in length between 1'5 and 1'8 inches, and in breadth 

 between 1'17 and 1'41. The average of eighty eggs, including the 

 twenty-six mentioned in Hume"s ' Nests and Eggs,' is exactly I'T 

 by 1'3 inches. 



Cripps, in blowing an egg of this bird, noticed that the drops as 

 they fell on to a pucca floor appeared phosphorescent. He could 

 give no reason for this, but the fact that they did so certainly deserves 

 mention in any article on the Cotton-Teal. 



General Habits. — In certain of the drier portions of its habitat, 

 this bird is semi-migratory in its habits, only visiting them in the 

 rains, and leaving again for some more suitable place as the haunts 

 in the former begin to dry up. 



Hume, referring to the vast numbers seen every day during the 

 cold weather in the Calcutta market, says it is a mystery to him 

 where they come from. Having myself shot over some of the vast 

 bhils and backwaters of the Ganges and Brahmapootra, I think it 

 would take a very large number indeed to surprise me. In the places 

 mentioned they simply swarm in thousands and are only out-numbered 

 by the whistling-teals. 



Probably every one knows how the fishermen of the Sunderbands 

 and other parts of Eastern India net the vast numbers of duck that 

 are daily sent into the Calcutta market, l)ut in case there are some 

 who do not, the following may explain. Over a great stretch of 

 shallow bhil they erect nets some fifteen to twenty feet high, usually 

 selecting the end of a large patch of water where it narrows off 

 either into dry land or forms a neck into yet another bhil. Then 



