220 INDIAN DUCKS 



" Fiom six to eight or iiinu eggs are laid. Tliu young are hatched 

 in about twent> -three days. TJiey at once repair to the water." 



The nest is usually well-concealed amidst the shrub and coarse 

 reeds and grass, and takes a considerable amount of searching to 

 discover ; but the duck sits very close, and often rises at one's 

 feet almost, thus disclosing the position, which might otherwise 

 escape detection. 



The eggs vary from six to ten in number, being usually six to 

 eight, and occasionally only five are laid. 



In colour they are a pale dull greenish stone-colour, in a few 

 yellowish-stone, but all are dull and all pale with no very definite 

 colour such as some ducks' eggs have. There is a slight gloss, some- 

 times rather pronounced, and I have seen none entirely glossless. 

 The texture is extremel\- fine and close, and the shell perhaps rather 

 thinner in [)roportion to the size of the eggs than in the majority of 

 eggs of the Anatiiuv. 



My eggs seem to average rather large ; I have a clutch given me 

 by Herr M. Kuschel, and collected in East Prussia, which averages 

 '2"24 X 1"6 inches ; the biggest is 227 X l'()2. A number of other 

 eggs 1 have measured have been well over 220, and I have seen 

 none under 21, but Hartert gives the minimum as 2 00 inches. 



The eggs collected in Finland, both by Wolley and Dresser, had 

 their measurements recorded as 2 X 1'5 inches, but the eggs collected 

 by the latter in Jutland measured 222 X 1'4. 



The average of 100 eggs collected by Gobel is given as 

 550 X 38-8 mm. (= 210 X 1'53 inches). 



It is possible that this bird may breed in Kashmir, Ladak and 

 Tibet for I have received a male from Rhamtso said to have been 

 shot whilst swimming " in attendance on wife on nest." The eggs 

 are typical Pintail's eggs, and I have no reason to disbelieve their 

 being authentic. The nest was not described, but was presumably' 

 in a reed-bed in the lake itself as the bird was reported to be 

 swimming round the nest. Logan-Hume reports also seeing a drake 

 Pintail on the 2nd July in full breeding-plumage in Baltistan on 

 the Drosai plateau. The bird was Hying up a stream to a small 

 marsh close by, and evidently breeding. 



General Habits. — Taken all round, the Pintail is one of the most 



