678 ANATID^. 



mottled wijh brown; lower plumage dull white; upper tail coverts whitet 

 freckled with brown. In winter the male is like the female, but has always 

 the white patch on the primaries. Bill black ; irides red. 



Length. 13 inches ; tail 3 ; wing 6*5 ; tarsus I ; bill from gape 1*1. 



Hab. Nearly throughout India, also Ceylon and Burmah, except the drier 

 regions as Sind, Kutch, Rajputana. Breeds in July and August, in the holes 

 of trees, laying from 8 to 10 eggs, of a delicate ivory white colour. They 

 generally affect swamps, marshes, and inundated ponds and ditches. 



Sub-Family, TADORNIN^: (Anatin, Sw.) 



Plumage rufous ; bill flattened towards the tip, with horny termination ; 

 hind toe long and slighty lobed. 



Dendrocygna, Sw. WHISTLING DUCKS. 



Bill rather large, of uniform width ; secondaries long, also the tarsi ; 2nd, 

 3rd and 4th primaries sub-equal and longest. 



1381. Dendrocygna Javanica (Horsf.\ Hume and Dav. y Sir. F. 



vi. p. 486 ; Legge, B. Ceylon, p. 1069 ; Hume and Marsh., Game Birds iii. 

 p. 109, pi. ; Oates, B. Br. Burm. ii. p. 273 ; Murray, Vert. Zool~> Sind, 

 p. 287. Anas javanica, Horsf., Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 199. Dendrocygna 

 aswuree, Jerd.* B. Ind. iii. p. 789. Dendrocygna arcuata (Cuv.), apud Hume, 

 Nests and Eggs Ind B. p. 639 ; Oates, Sfr. F. v. p. 169. The LESSER 

 WHISTLING TEAL. 



Top of head and occiput dull wood brown, and a narrow streak of the same 

 continued down the middle of the back of the neck from behind the nape ; 

 sides of the face and neck fulvous brown ; chin and throat albescent ; lower 

 neck and breast yellowish chestnut, gradually passing into the light chestnut 

 of the under surface of the body ; vent and under tail coverts albescent ; back 

 and scapulars dusky brown, the feathers edged with dingy fulvous chestnut, 

 forming lunules ; upper tail coverts chestnut ; tail brown, tipped slightly paler ; 

 primaries and secondaries black ; greater coverts and tertiaries dusky brown ; 

 lesser and median coverts deep maroon ; axillaries black ; bill dusky brown, 

 darker at the tip ; irides deep brown ; eyelids bright yellow to pale golden ; 

 legs plumbeous. 



Length. 17-5 to 18 inches; wing 8 to 8-5 ; tail 2 to 2' 12 ; bill at front 1-5 ; 

 tarsus 175. 



Hab. Sind, Punjab, N.-W. Provinces and the Indian Peninsula generally, 

 but not in the more arid tracts, where water is not abundant, as in the interior 

 of Rajputana. According to Hume, there is scarcely any suitable locality 

 within the limits of the Indian empire, including Burmah, Ceylon, the Anda- 

 mans and Nicobars, in which this species does not occur either as a perma- 



