GLADCIONETTA CLANG DLA 297 



another about, and scattering the shallow water in every direction. 

 It was not deep enough to admit of long dives, and the birds 

 principally got about by skittering along, half swimming, half 

 flying along the surface of it. Every now and then two birds 

 would stop and begin bowing and bobbing to one another ; this 

 would continue for a minute or two, and then away they would go 

 and join in the rough-and-tumble games of the other birds. In 

 the course of their chases of one another they would sometimes come 

 within a yard or two of where I was hiding, but it was not until I 

 had watched them for a good half-hour that one of them saw me, 

 and was on the wing at once with a loud squawk, repeated by the 

 other birds as they followed suit. This was the only loud noise they 

 made, though they made a very faint sound, half chattering, half 

 quacking, as they played together. 



I also shot a female Golden-eye at the Hinjri bheel in north 

 Lakhimpur, on the ISth December, l'.)01. This bird was in com- 

 pany with a flock of gadwall, and I saw no others either on this or 

 on any of the adjoining bheels. It tiew well with the gadwall, but 

 looked conspicuously smaller, and when I fired I thought it was 

 merely a white-eyed pochard. 



In 1911 a number of Golden-eye must have visited India, for 

 Mr. Dempster sent two specimens, and Mr. Hughes one specimen 

 from Jhelum to the Bombay Natural History Society, whilst a 

 fourth was also sent from Eoorki by Mr. Cunningham, and the 

 same year Mr. Hope Simpson killed two at Gorakhpur. 



Delme-Eadcliffe records that they appear yearly on the Khushtil 

 Khan Lake in Baluchistan and are shot. 



Nidification. — Normally the Golden-eye breeds in hollows in trees, 

 or, less often, in holes in the ground, in banks, or in rocks, but 

 sometimes it makes a nest on the ground in the same manner as 

 most other ducks. In the latter case the nest is usually rather 

 scanty and ill-formed, but with a thick lining. 



Seebohm, writing of this species, observes : — 



" But the most remarkable fact in the history of the Golden Eye 

 is its habit of occasionally perching on the bare l:>ranch of some 

 forest tree, and of discovering a hole in the trunk, sometimes quite 

 a small one, but leading to a hollow inside, where it deposits its eggs 



