INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 5 



All kinds of Flamingoes, of which the nidification is known, breed in 

 large communities and seem to select much the same kind of country, 

 sheets of water wide in extent but very shallow, as the sites in which 

 to make their nests. These are inverted cones of mud, some foot or 

 eighteen inches high, with the ends broken off and a shallow cavity 

 made in the summits instead. The nests are made close together, in 

 many cases several in a group almost touching one another, but of 

 course their proximity depends greatly on the depth of the water in 

 which they are placed. Where this is variable, the nests will be found 

 in close clusters in the shallower parts, sometimes even on mud or 

 sand-banks above water-level ; where the water is all shallow — such 

 as is found in the Ehone delta, Spain and elsewhere — the nests are 

 scattered casually over a considerable extent of land. In Bonaire, the 

 land on which the birds had made their nests was not of mud or sand 

 covered by water but of coral. Hartert's own words describe the place 

 vividly for us, he says : " The water was deep in places and the bottom 

 very rough, consisting of very sharp corals and often of a deceitful 

 crust of salt or saltpetre under which the water was black and very 

 deep. It required much care to avoid these places, and it took us over 

 an hour to reach the nests. The nests themselves were flat plateaus 

 standing out of the water from 3" to 6", the water round them being 

 apparently very shallow ; but it was often the fatal crust that caused this 

 appearance, not the proper bottom. Many of the nests were close 

 together and some of them connected by dry ground. They were 

 quite hard, so that one could stand on them, and almost the only way 

 of getting along was to jump from one nest to another. The nests 

 consisted of clay, hardened by the sun and penetrated and encrusted 

 with salt and pieces of coral, with a distinct concavity in the centre." 



The eggs, nearly invariably two in number, are long ovals, 

 generally a good deal pointed at both ends. The colour of the true 

 shell itself is a pale skim-milk blue, but they are so encrusted with a 

 dense chalky covering that they appear, except where stained, to be 

 pure white. They vary in size considerably, but average about 

 3-6'x'2'3". 



Although so common in many parts of India, they are nowhere, 

 I believe, easy to get shots at, as they are extremely wary and cute 

 birds. All over their habitat shyness seems to be their most 



