4 WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 
bill of the Shoveller, along the edges of which there 
is a regular comb. The bill is covered with skin, not 
with horn as in most birds, except at the end, where 
there is a ‘‘nail ’’ which takes up more or less of the 
tip, and is often coloured differently from the rest of 
the bill. 
The body is heavy, the tail generally short, rounded 
or pointed, composed of many feathers, much hidden at 
the root by the thick soft coverts, and the wings are 
never excessively long, and often markedly short ; but all 
Indian species can fly, except in the moulting season, 
when, as with members of this family in general, all the 
wing-quills are shed at once. But as most of our water- 
fowl come to us as winter migrants, they have to get 
over their wing-moult before they start on their journey 
south, 
Most of our Ducks also breed in Central and Northern 
Asia, making a nest on the ground which they line with 
their own down. Our resident Indian Ducks mostly 
build in trees asa rule, and the downy lining to the nest 
is imperfect or wanting. 
The eggs of the Ducks are numerous, and white, pale 
buff or green in colour, without spots. The young, as 
every one knows, are active and feed themselves, and are 
clothed in hairy-looking down. They get well fledged 
on the body before the wing-quills are grown, and in this 
stage are known as “ flappers.’’ Their first plumage 
generally resembles that of the old female, but may 
differ from that of either parent. 
Although Ducks are monogamous in the wild state, 
and often show considerable conjugal devotion, they 
readily take to polygamy in domestication, and hybri- 
dize freely. Even among wild birds hybrids are not un- 
common, though, curiously enough, such seem seldom 
to occur in India. Mr. Hume says nothing about them 
in his “Game Birds: and Wildtowl, 7? andy have 
personally seen very few Indian specimens. It is hardly 
