124 INDIAN DUCKS 



found its uest in Pegu in July and August — a mass of dead leaves 

 and grass placed on a low thick cane brake in paddy-land, and con- 

 taining six very smooth white eggs .... Those nests I myself 

 found were invariably situated, as above described, on cane brakes." 

 Jerdon also says that : — 



" It generalh', perhaps, breeds in the dryer patches of grass on 

 the ground, often at a considerable distance from water, carefully 

 concealing its nest by intertwining some blades of grass over it." 



Lastly, Legge notes in ' Birds of Ceylon " : — 



" It sometimes builds on the ground among the rushes or tussocks, 

 and even in reeds, the nest half floating in water." 



In ' Game-Birds " Hume's notes on the nidification of this species 

 are very full and interesting, containing practically every known 

 situation for the nest. Thus Captam Butler took the nest from a 

 tussock of grass growing out of a dried stick fence ; Mr. Doig and he 

 took them frequently from creeper-covered tamarisk jungle growing 

 in water, and the former also found them placed on the tops of 

 clumps of bull-rushes. 



Mr. J. Davidson also found the nests on the ground in Mysore, 

 where they were placed in tufts of grass which formed islands in 

 the middle of weedy tanks. 



Cripps found that in Dacca, Furreedpur, and Silhet they breed 

 both on trees and on the ground. 



In the Dibrugarh district of Assam I found that these Whistling- 

 Teal almost invariably placed their nests on high pieces of land 

 standing in swamps. In the north of the district I noticed that 

 they were locally migratory. In June, in certain places, not a 

 single bird was to be seen, perhaps, in a long morning's walk, 

 but in July, by the time the water had collected in the low-lying 

 land, forming wide though shallow stretches of water, the birds had 

 gathered in hundreds, and were busy over their domestic arrange- 

 ments. Often across these pieces of water the villagers had made 

 raised banks from one side to the other, either to cut off their special 

 patch of cultivation or as a path. The centre of these banks were, 

 as a rule, trodden bare, but the sides were, more or less, covered 

 with dense grass, some two or three feet high, and in such places the 

 Whistlers placed their nests. 



