WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 35 
the throat and front of the neck, are of a most crude and 
brilliant rose-pink, which does not harmonize at all well 
' with the bright red eye, and white beak shading into 
flesh colour at base and tip. 
The female, though less striking in appearance, much 
resembles the male. She is, however, duller throughout, 
the pink of the head being especially dull and dirty ; 
there is no black on the throat, but a black streak 
along the crown. This mark the male assumes when 
not in full colour. The bill of the female is black, with 
a cream bar between nostrils and root ; eye duller than 
in male. The young are much lke the female, but 
paler below, and withthe head of a dull neutral tint 
instead of pink. The bill probably resembles that of 
the female in all young birds, but the youngest male I 
have seen already has a light bill in the skin; and 
even in skins the difference in colour in the bills still 
shows. The feet are purplish black in all. The male 
is about two feet long, with a wing about eleven 
inches, shank nearly two, and bill all but two and-a- 
half. The female is a little smaller. 
The Pink-head is a purely Indian Duck, never leaving 
our area, nor occurring outside it. In most places it is 
rare, but fairly common in Upper Bengal in the districts 
of Purneah, Maldah, Bhagulpur, and in Tirhoot ; in the 
rest of Bengal, Orissa, the Northern Circars, Oudh, and 
the North-West Provinces it occurs but rarely, and may 
straggle occasionally to Delhi, Mhow, and Ahmednagar 
on the west and Madras on the south ; while from the 
east it has been recorded north of Bhamo. It frequents, 
in small or moderate-sized flocks, weedy ponds and 
swamps, generally those surrounded by jungle, and nests 
on the ground in high grass in June and July. The 
eggs are quite unique, white and nearly spherical in 
shape ; about nine are laid. The male’s windpipe has a 
most curious bulb, partly of bone and partly of mem- 
brane, the latter being supported by fine network of 
