282 ANATID^I. 



Subfamily ANATIN.E. 



Sarcidiornis melanonotus (Penn.). Tlie Comb Duck. 



Sarkidiornis melanonotus (Penn.}, Jerd. B. Ind. ii ; p. 785 ; Hume, 

 Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 950. 



The Comb Duck or Nukhtah appears to be partly migratory, 

 for you find it breeding in places where it is never seen in other 

 seasons. 



It lays in the North-West Provinces, where alone I have taken 

 its nest, in July, August, and occasionally the first half of Septem- 

 ber, but in Ceylon it appears to breed in February and March. 



According to my experience, it generally nests in some mango- 

 grove bordering a jheel or broad, placing its nest, which is com- 

 posed of sticks, a few dead leaves, grass, and feathers, at no great 

 height from the ground, either in some large hole in the trunk or 

 in the depression between three or four great arms, where the 

 main stem (as it so often does in mango-trees) divides at a height 

 of from six to ten feet. 



I have found numerous nests thus situated. Once, and once 

 only, I found a nest in a regular swamp at one end of a jheel in 

 amongst a thick growth of sedge and rush, and in this case no 

 sticks had been used, but the whole nest, which was a foot in 

 diameter and 5 or 6 inches in depth, was composed of reeds and 

 rushes, lined with a little dry grass and a few feathers ; this nest 

 had a good deep cavity, I daresay fully 4 inches in depth, while 

 those found in trees had central depressions barely half this depth. 

 Twelve is the largest number of eggs that I have found, and I 

 believe seven or eight to be the usual complement ; but on this 

 head see the following interesting remarks by the late Mr. A. 

 Anderson. He says : 



" The Nukta or Comb Duck (SarTcidiornis melanonotus}, the 

 Whistling Teal (Dtndrocygna arcuata}, with the Cotton Teal (Netta- 

 pus coromcmdelianus} are non-migrant, and breed throughout the 

 plains of India during the ' rains,' viz., from July to September, 

 according to locality. 



" These Ducks, according to my experience, nest almost exclu- 

 sively on trees ; and they are, so far as nidification is concerned, 

 essentially perching Ducks. They begin to pair early in June, and 

 may be seen flying about in search of a suitable tree almost 

 simultaneously with the first fall of rain, which generally occurs 

 in the North- West Provinces on or about the 18th of that month. 



" SarTcidiornis melanonotus. This curious and handsomely- 

 coloured Duck deposits its eggs in holes of old deciduous trees, 

 and never, I should say, in grass by the sides of tanks, &c., as 

 stated by Jerdon. The male bird (as in fact do all the others) 



