26H INDIAN DUCKS 



bers throughout Assam, Manipur, Cachar, Sylhet, Chittagong, and 

 Southern Burma. 



As regards the last mentioned, however, some of the records may 

 refer to the Eastern White-eyed Pochard. 



As it wanders south, it appears to get more and more rare, but it 

 is not easy to trace its extreme southern limit. To the extreme west, 

 Vidal got it at a place called Khed, in Katnagiri, about latitude 

 17° 4'. Mr, P, M. Allen records having shot a pair of White-eyes 

 in the Nizam's territory at Nalgouda, latitude 17"' 22'. Then to 

 the east coast, Hume says, " I have failed to trace it ; it is not 

 recorded from . . . one of the Madras districts south of Mysore 

 and the town of Madras." This would infer that he has had records 

 of it as far south as Madras; but I cannot find any traces of them. 

 In Burma it lias only been recorded as far south as Arakan. 



Nidification. — This is one of the very few migratory ducks which 

 In'eed regularly within our limits. As to its breeding in the plains, 

 Hume writes ; — 



" The White Eye breeds possibly in some localities in the plains 

 of India, and in Sind, where it swarms during the cold weather, and 

 where 1 was informed that in some broads it remained during the 

 whole year. I have never, however, succeeded in finding a nest or 

 obtaining any relialile information as to one being found in the plains." 



This was written nearly forty years ago, and the reliable infor- 

 mation is still wanting; so that it is only fair to presume that the 

 duck does not breed in the plains. 



In Kashmir it breeds regularly and in very great numbers, so 

 large, indeed, that the collecting of the eggs of this duck and of the 

 mallard, and bringing them into Srinagar by boats for sale, formed a 

 regular and profitable profession with a number of the people living in 

 the vicinity of their breeding-haunts. The practice has now been 

 prohibited, and the ducks are said to be fZccreasing in numbers. The 

 nest is an ordinary structure of fair dimensions, made in the usual 

 duck fashion of reeds, grasses, etc , and is, in India at least, nearly 

 always placed either very close to the water or in the water itself 

 amongst the vegetation growing in the shallows. Inside the nest 

 there are, of course, feathers and down in greater or smaller amounts, 

 frequently not much ; but, in addition to this, there appears generally 



