ANAS. 289 



but the latter are always \vhiter and never exhibit the green tinge 

 so conspicuous in the freshly-laid egg of the Common AVild Duck. 

 The eggs vary in length from 2-1 to 2-38, and in breadth from 

 1-5 to 1-72 ; but the average of thirty eggs is 2-23 by 1-6. 



Anas pcecilorhyncha (Forst.). TJie Spotted-billed Duck. 



Alias poecilorhyncha, Penn., Jerd. B. 2nd. ii, p. 799 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. # E. no. 959. 



The Spotted-billed or Grey Duck breeds, I believe, in suitable 

 localities all over the plains of India. 



The nest appears to be generally placed upon the ground, and 

 rarely in the fork of some flat branch just above the surface of the 

 ground or water, in low dense cover of grass, rush, and the like, 

 to be of the usual duck type, and to contain from six to twelve 



eggs- 



A nest which I found on the 1st August at Eahun was placed 

 on a drooping branch of a tree, which hung down from a canal 

 bank into a thick clump of rushes growing in a jheel that, near 

 the bridge, fringes the canal. The nest was about nine inches 

 above the surface of the water, was entirely concealed in the high 

 rushes, and was firmly based on a horizontal trifurcation of the 

 bough. It was composed of dry rush, and had a good deep hollow 

 in which down, feathers, and fine grass were intermingled. The 

 nest was at least a foot in diameter, perhaps more, and I suppose 

 2 inches thick in the centre and four inches at the sides. It 

 contained three fresh eggs. 



A second nest I found on the 29th August in a large jheel, half 

 swamp, half lake, in front of Moonj (also in the Etawah District), 

 on the ground in a low thick bed of sedge on an island about 



2 yards square, to reach which a man had to swim. I did not see 

 the nest (though I saw the bird flushed and the eggs taken), but it 

 was described to me much as I have described the nest that I 

 myself examined. The nest contained six fresh eggs. 



Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall writes : " I found a nest in the 

 Muttra District on the 31st August, 1871. It was a well-made, 

 cup-shaped nest of grass, fresh plucked, about 9 inches across, 



3 inches deep, and the sides fully 2 inches thick ; it was sparingly 

 lined with down and feathers from the breast of the parent bird, 

 and contained seven brownish-white eggs. It was placed on the 

 ground in a slight hollow among thick grass, about 18 inches 

 high under the trees on the outer side of the canal bank, and 

 about a yard from the edge of a small excavation pit, full of water. 

 The bird was on the nest, and when roused flew with difficulty.'' 



Mr. Doig found nests of this Duck in Sind on the 28th of 

 April and 1st of May. They were in long grass on the ground, on 

 small islands. Colonel Butler states that he found several nests 

 in October, between Deesa and Ahmedabad, on the ground in 

 long grass. In Mysore, according to Major Mclnroy, flappers, 



TOL. in. 19 



