144 INDIAN DUCKS 



Within oiu- limits, aud probably everywhere else also, the birds 

 commence to lay in jNIay, and -nestlings just hatched have been 

 seen and procured well on into July in India, Tibet, Ladakh, 

 and even in Southern Russia. 



Different writers give the number of eggs laid as varying between 

 six and ten, but eight appears to be the number most frequently laid. 

 Eggs sent to Hume from South Russia are described by him as being 

 moderately broad ovals, slightly pointed at one end. The colour is 

 said to be a creamy- or ivory-white, with the shells very smooth and 

 comparatively thin. 



They vary in length between -J. 4 and -I'l inches, and in breadth 

 from 1'7 to I'd. bat, as he says, a larger series would probably show 

 a wider range of difference. 



My eggs agree with the above in every respect, including those I 

 have had sent me from Tibet. 



General Habits. — Hume says : — 



" They arrive in liocks. and before leaving in April gather again 

 into these, but during the winter they are almost invariably seen in 

 pairs. Often several pairs may be seen congregating in the same 

 place, but even then each pair separates on any alarm and acts on its 

 own behalf, and without reference to the others." 



In Bengal, and further south probably, few people see them in 

 iiocks, even when the> arrive or when about to depart, as the flocks 

 seem to break up soon after their arrival in Northern India, and the 

 pairs then make their way to their final destination, free from the 

 influence of the birds they started with. In Northern India the first 

 few birds arrive as early as — perhaps even earlier than — the end of 

 September, and then work slowly south, arriving in Central India and 

 the adjoining provinces at least a month later; nor are they common in 

 Bengal until early November. In Southern India they are rare before 

 the end of that month. The latter part of the country they leave 

 again in the end of February and early in March ; by the middle of 

 that month nearly all have left Lower Bengal, the Central Provinces, 

 and Central Bombay, and by the beginning of April they are just 

 thinning m Northern India, and most have gone before May sets in. 

 They have been, of course, recorded throughout that month, and even 

 in Bengal I once saw a pair in the end of April, but these cases are, 

 I think, but examples of the exceptions that prove the rule. 



