284 



Major Wardlaw Ramsay says that it breeds in Tonghoo in July 

 and August. 



The eggs are regular orals, only slightly more pointed at one 

 end than the other. The texture of the shell is wonderfully close 

 and compact, and, when fresh, the eggs, both in colour and appear- 

 ance, seem made of polished ivory. As incubation proceeds a good 

 deal of the gloss disappears, and the delicate ivory-white becomes 

 stained and sullied, but even to the last they are one of the 

 smoothest eggs to the touch that we have. 



The eggs vary in length from 2-22 to 2*58, and in breadth from 

 1'65 to 1*78; but the average of the forty-five eggs is 2-41 by 

 1-72. 



Dendrocygna javanica (Horsf.). The Lesser WhistUnr/ Teal. 



Dendrocygna awstiree (Si/hes), Jerd. B. Ind.u, p. 789. 

 Dendrocygna arcuata (Ciiv.}, Hume, Rouyh Draft N. fy E. no. 952. 



The Lesser Whistling Teal appears to breed in most parts of 

 the Empire, is very common at the Nicobars, and has recently been 

 obtained at the Andamans also. 



I have found its eggs in two situations in hollows in trees or 

 between the larger branches of these, either unlined or slightly 

 lined with grass and feathers, or in old Crows' and Kites' nests, 

 which it lines in a similar fashion. In all cases the trees in or 

 on which I have found it nesting have been in the immediate 

 proximity of water. This, however, as will be seen further on, is 

 not at all the rule elsewhere. With us it lays in July and August, 

 and a few eggs may be found even during the first half of Septem- 

 ber ; but the majority have, I think, hatched off by the first of 

 that month. Twelve is the maximum number of eggs that I have 

 seen in any nest, and ten or eleven are, I think, the usual com- 

 plement. 



Dr. Jerdon tells us (whether as the result of his own observa- 

 tion or on the strength of the statements of others it is impossible 

 to say) that the Whistling Teal " generally, perhaps, breeds in the 

 drier patches of grass on the ground, often at a considerable distance 

 from water, carefully concealing its nest by intertwining some 

 blades of grass over it. Occasionally, however, it builds its nest 

 in hollows of trees, and not unfrequently in nests made of sticks, 

 and that have, in some cases at all events, been used by Cormorants 

 or Small Herons. 



Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall remarks that " this species builds in 

 trees a nest of sticks, and lays about seven to ten eggs, of a white, 

 fawn, or olive-brown colour. A nest found on the 25th of July 

 near Bolundshar contained only one egg, on which both the parent 

 birds were sitting. It was a tolerably compact structure of twigs 

 in a keekur-tree at the edge of a jheel, about eight feet from the 

 road; it was at the side of a metalled road near a large town. I 

 shot the male, but missed the female with the left barrel. When I 



