118 INDIAN DUCKS 



cover to hares, jackals, and now and then a leopard. Overhanging 

 one of these tanks and encroaching into the water itself, was a fine 

 banyan tree, and over the water, and resting on a number of 

 branches which crossed and recrossed one another, a pair of 

 Whistling-Teal had made their nest. It was quite an ideal place 

 for a nest ; the branches projected well over a deep tank, and, though 

 supported by the numerous roots which had grown down from them, 

 were yet not strong enough to bear the weight of a man. In 

 addition to this, the brambles were so fearfully dense round the 

 tree that it was an awful business to get to it. Eventually, after 

 two visits had been made, we cut a narrow pathway through the 

 jungle and sent an adventurous small boy up into the tree, who 

 succeeded in clambering out to the nest and letting the eggs down in 

 his puggree, or head-cloth. 



In Rungpur I found them selecting big trees and generally making 

 their nests high up in them, some thirty feet or so from the ground. 

 One nest I took from a large hollow in a dead tree. All the nests I 

 saw in the district were made in trees growing beside the ditches 

 which I have referred to in describing the cotton-teal's nesting. 



I have never seen their nests on the ground, but any one hunting 

 for them should not overlook the fact that they may be found to 

 sometimes place their nests thus. 



Barnes, vide his article on ' Nesting in Western India,' found 

 this bird breeding at Hyderabad in Sind, and saw one nest which 

 was placed in a babool tree, in the very centre of a large and deep 

 jhil. Barnes doubted the authenticity of the eggs in his collection 

 on account of their small size, and says that they measured I'S) by 

 I'G inches. This is smaller than usual, but not remarkably so, and 

 the difference in the size of their eggs is not half so great as is that 

 between the two species of birds themselves. 



The only note in Oates' edition of Hume's ' Nests and Eggs ' is 

 of a nest found at Saugor, C.P., and taken from a large hollow in an 

 old tree ; the hollow was well lined with twigs, grass, and a few 

 feathers. The eggs, seven in number, varied between 2'1'2 and 

 2'25 inches, and between 1"()5 and 1'75 in breadth. They breed in 

 most places in July and August ; in Nadia I took the nest at the end 

 of June — I forget the date ; and in Hungpur they breed principally 

 in August, a few in September. 



