20 * iMr. E. Gibson on. the ()ntitJ/olof/f/ of [Ibis, 



The third, 48 x 34 mm. The eggs, o£ a warm cream-colour, 

 are somewhat elongated in shape, with a distinct butt or 

 blunter end. 



346. duerquedula flavirostris Vieill. Yellow-billed Teal. 



Hudson gives a description of the habits of this, our com- 

 monest Teal. And Claude Grant enlarges upon the same in 

 application to our district. 



Whether it is migratory or not I do not know ; but a 

 fresh fall of rain in the winter or spring invariably brings 

 it into evidence; and the familiarity and tameness of the 

 species constitute it a pleasing visitor. Strangers to the 

 Yngleses are surprised and interested to find tiiese Teal 

 frequenting the garden of the head-station, where they roost 

 at night and not infrequently nest. Curiously enough, the 

 trees adjacent to, or overhanging the principal paths (or 

 those in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling-house), seem 

 gener.illy to be the favourite situations; and it is at their 

 own convenience, and not from any movement of passers by, 

 that the birds leave their ))erch in the morning, sometimes 

 considerably after sunrise, and go off to their feeding- 

 grounds. I have recorded more than one instance when, on 

 their return in the evening, a pair or more have passed low 

 down over the heads of the tennis-players^ or through the 

 patio itself, quite members of the community. 



Claude Grant correctly describes this Teal as being also 

 entiiely a tree-nester in our locality, whereas Hudson^s ex- 

 perience is that it breeds on the ground. My own record 

 is l)oth long and voluminous, and I have never known 

 the former rule departed from. The nests which formerly 

 came under my observation were invariably situated in one 

 of the chambers of the pendent communities of the Green 

 Parrakeet {Bolborhynchvs monacltva Bodd.), not on the top 

 of them, as stated by Claude Grant. Only so late as 1913 

 did I first chronicle an exception to my dictum, when no 

 less than three nests were placed in eucalyptus trees in the 

 garden, on the top of the accumulation of bark and leaves 

 which had formed where the great trunk bifurcated, about 



