DENDROCYCNA FULVA 119 



I have never taken more than ten eggs from any nest, and think 

 six to eight is the number most often laid, and I have taken four 

 quite hard-set. 



I have noticed that there is a very general tendency to over- 

 estimate the number of eggs laid by all game-birds, whether land or 

 water ; why this should be so, I cannot tell, but that it is so cannot 

 be doubted. Thus the majority of quails lay four eggs, few more than 

 six ; jungle-fowl lay five or six, often only two or three, sometimes 

 eight or more, but this is the exception ; bush and bamboo-partridges 

 almost invariably four or five. Of nearly all these birds, writers — 

 general!)' anonymous, at other times good sportsmen but bad 

 observers-^have noticed their laying double the number, and put 

 that down as the normal number in a clutch. 



After this digression, to return to this Whistling-Teal's eggs, 

 they vary in no way from those of the smaller bird, though Gates 

 says that they are, perhaps, of superior smoothness. This has not 

 struck me, and I certainly could not discriminate between a small 

 egg of D. fulva and a large one of I), javanica. "When first laid, 

 they are a pure pearly white, often showing a slight gloss ; this gloss 

 goes off very quickly, and soon the eggs take a very faint greyish or 

 yellowish tint, the shade depending, I think, on the water the pair of 

 birds frequent and the material of which the nest is made. I have 

 a clutch of eggs taken from a nest made principally of, and lined 

 entirely with, rank weeds, and these eggs are faint, but distinct, 

 yellowish underneath and pale greyish above. The normal shape of 

 the egg is a very broad regular oval, but little smaller at one end than 

 the other. Abnormal eggs are generally longer in shape, but I have 

 seen none at all pointed. They are fine and smooth in texture, but 

 inclined to be chalky, and not very close-grained. 



Fifty of my eggs average 219 X 1'69 inches. The smallest I 

 have ever taken was 1'84 X 1'56, and the largest '240 X 201 ; but 

 neither of these is now in my collection. 



General Habits. — Unlike D, javanica, this bird is usually found in 

 rather small flocks ; even in Jessore and Khulna, where it is perhaps 

 more abundant than in any other portion of its range, I seldom 

 noticed it in flocks of much over twenty, and never, I think, over forty. 

 Generally there were some dozen or fifteen members to each flock. 



