206 INDIAN DUCKS 



move compressed. The texture is fine, close, and smooth, and in 

 some cases has a faint gloss.. All my eggs are a pale Iniff, and vary 

 hardly at all in depth of colouring. 



Hartert gives the average size of 100 eggs as 44'65 X 82'68 mm. 

 (= 1-7G X 1'40 inches). 



General Habits. — Hume seems to think that Querqurdida qurrqur- 

 dula arrives in India earlier, if anything, than the present teal, but 

 further observations have shown them to arrive at much the same 

 time, though one year the Garganey may he first and the next year 

 the Common Teal. 



In 1.S9K I had quite numerous records of their arrival in northern 

 India and Assam in August, the earliest being that of a small Hock 

 seen on the '22nd of that month. Hume says : — 



" In the more northern plains jiortions of the Empire, tliongh 

 a few are seen during the latter half of September, and exceptional 

 cases have been reported of their appearance some weeks earlier 

 even than this, I think we may say that the first heavy flight arrive 

 during the first week of October." 



Hume, I think, refers in this paragraph mainly to North-east and 

 Central India, and it vi'ould therefore really seem as if the Common 

 Teal were earlier in northern Bengal than in most parts, reversing 

 what is the usual rule with most, if not all, other migratory ducks. 

 By this I do not mean to say that the Teal are all with us by 

 September, even in the northern pai'ts of Assam, but I do mean to 

 say that by the middle of that month they are quite common in 

 many parts and in some are fairly numerous by the second week. 



It is possible, indeed probable, that our eastern birds are those 

 which come from China : and as they breed there as far south at 

 least as the 40th degree latitude, they have not nearly so far to come 

 as those which travel from the west, few of which really come from 

 further south than about the 50th degree. 



Teal are extremely variable in the numbers in which they collect. 

 Often they may be seen singly or in pairs, and at the same place 

 flocks may be seen numbering their hundreds, even thousands. The 

 largest flocks appear to be met with in Sind and the north of the 

 North-west Provinces and the Punjab, and perhaps Northern 

 Eajputana. In these places they are to be seen literally in flocks of 



