98 WATER FOWL OF INDIA AND ASIA. 
being the common wild Duck not only of Australia and New 
Zealand, but of New Guinea and even Polynesia, where very few 
Ducks are found, It lays about a dozen eggs of a creamy or 
greenish-white, but, though so very similar to the Mallard and 
Spotted-bill in most respects—indeed, it will in captivity 
interbreed with them with the greatest readiness—it is much 
more of a tree-builder, the nest being placed indifferently 
either on the ground or ina hole or stump of a tree or in the 
deserted nest of some other bird. 
The Gadwall. 
Chaulelasmus streperus, BLANFORD, Faun. Brit. 
Ind., Birds, Vol) LV, p. 440. 
VERNACULAR NAMES:—Muila, Bhuar, Beykhur, 
H. ; Peing-hans, Beng.; Mail, Nepal ; Burd, 
Sind. 
The Gadwall, though one of the larger Ducks, is a 
delicately formed bird, with long wings, small feet, and 
a narrow bill, of which the fringing shows well below the 
upper chap. 
The male has the head and neck closely speckled 
brown, the breast mottled black and white ; the general 
plumage brownish-grey, the effect produced by a 
pencilling of black and buff; the belly is white, the 
rump and stern are black, and the wing-bar is white 
behind witha black patch before ; there is an ill-defined 
patch of deep chestnut on the flat of the wing. The 
bill is black and the feet orange, more or less dull, with 
black webs ; the eyes dark. 
The female is mottled dark and light brown, with a 
white belly, the wing-bar is like that of the male, but 
there is only a little chestnut on the wing. The feet and 
legs are like the male’s, but the bill is orange at the sides 
to a greater or less extent asa rule, though not invari- 
ably. 
Young birds and males in undress resemble the female, 
but the former are more spotted below, and the wing- 
