MAEMAHONETTA ANGUSTIROSTRIS 245 



I'ounding a point on the same island, I distuvbed a duck which 

 entered the water with fourteen duckhngs about a week old. I gave 

 chase, and the duck went through the well-known tactics of her 

 kind by pretending that she was wounded and lagging behind her 

 ducklings. She gradually made off in a direction aw'ay from her 

 ducklings. She let the Ijoat come within a yard of her, and she 

 was undoubtedly a Marljled Teal. When she thought her ducklings 

 were a safe distance from us, she rose quite easily and made off." 



Ludlow also gives a most interesting account of this l)ird"s 

 breeding on the Sonmeani bheel, about fifty miles from Karachi, in 

 the Las Beyla State of Baluchistan. Apparently quite a number 

 of these ducks breed here annually, provided there is sufticient 

 water, which is not always the case, and Mr. Ludlow's collectors 

 assured him they had seen at least a dozen nests from which the 

 broods had hatched out, and they succeeded in catching two young 

 ducklings for him. They also found two clutches of eggs, one of 

 twelve incubated, one of nine fresh. 



In Persia, it should be noted that hard-set clutches of five and 

 six eggs were taken. 



General Habits. — Many birds are resident in N.E. Sind and 

 Baluchistan, but as regards the migratory birds, this appears to be 

 later in its arrival than most ducks, even at its extreme north-west 

 point of entry ; it does not appear to be seen in any numbers until 

 late in October or early November, and as it works south and east, it. 

 of course, gets later and later. Its departure would, on the other 

 hand, seem to take place at much the same time as that of other birds 

 of its order, i.e., in April, a few remaining until the last few days of 

 May in very late years. 



Hume wrote concerning the habits of this teal as follows : — 



" In Sind, where I had alnmdant opportunity of observing it, I 

 found the Marbled Teal invariably associated in large parties. Its 

 favourite haunts were broads, thickly grown with rush, in which it fed 

 and sported, comparatively seldom showing itself in the open water. 

 As a rule, it does not at once rise when guns are fired, as the other 

 ducks do, but if by chance it is at the moment outside of the rushes 

 or similar cover in the open water it scuttles into concealment as 

 a coot would do, and if in cover already, remains there perfectly 

 quiet until the boats push within 60 or 70 yards of it ; then it rises, 

 generally one at a time, and, even though fired at, not unfrequently 



