SPATULA CLTPEATA . 237 



Nidification. — As regards its breeding in Indian limits, all I can 

 find is Layard's record noted by Legge : — 



' Layard not only discovered it one year near Jaffna, but found 

 it breeding there at the Chavagacherry lagoon in March. He there 

 met with a female with twelve young ones, most of which he cap- 

 tured, and in the month of November he obtained some specimens 

 from native shooters." 



This, of course, was an abnormal breeding incident in every way, 

 time as well as locality, and it is very hard to give any reason for 

 such a queer occurrence. 



It breeds throughout their northern habitat — Asia, America, 

 Europe — and also in parts of Northern Africa. It is said to 

 breed very extensively in Abyssinia and also in Algeria. In Asia it 

 breeds in Turkestan, Northern Persia, and in the whole of its 

 northern Asiatic range. In iMiropo it breeds over the greater part 

 of the continent, though absent in some countries and present in 

 others quite as far south. 



It makes a rather large, loose, and untidy nest of soft reeds 

 rushes, &c., lined with down, and places it on the ground in swampy 

 land or by the edge of some piece of water in fendand. It does not 

 appear to frequent open water for the purposes of breeding, and 

 selects places well away from observation and mterference, and 

 conceals its nest with great care. Hume says that the nest is a 

 shallow depression in the soil made by the birds, and thinly or 

 thickly lined with down or dried grass. 



The description of the down with which the nest is lined, and 

 which is, of course, taken from the bird itself, is said by Legge to be 

 " small, dark brown, with small plainly-defined whitish centres." 

 The eggs vary in number from seven to sixteen, eight or nine being 

 perhaps the number most often laid. 



The colour is a pale, but rather clear-tinted, yellow stone-colour ; 

 some have a creamy tinge, and others are slightly greenish, but a 

 yellow-grey is undoubtedly the most common colour. 



The texture is extremely fine and close, with a surface slightly or 

 decidedly glossed. My eggs average 2'0() X 1'4 inches, and are in 

 shape rather long ovals, distinctly pointed at the smaller end. 



Hume's series measured from '20 to 22 inches in length, and 

 from 1'33 to 1;55 in breadth. 



