INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 179 



It was not ten feet from the ground, bat the boughs were so massive 

 and so well inclosed the nest that I visited the pool, stood under the tree 

 and saw the parent birds several times before I noticed where it was. It 

 contained three eggs, just like those described by Hume, with a beautiful 

 texture, reminding one, when touched with the finger, of the eggs of 

 the Barbets and Frogmouths, possessing the same satiny feeling which 

 is so uncommon outside the families mentioned. In colour they are 

 nearly white, and have a fine gloss when freshly laid, but they soil very 

 quickly and are then difficult to clean again. 



The number of eggs laid seems to vary very much, but, probably, a 

 dozen or less is about the normal number, though Mr. Anderson 

 seems to have had from fifteen to twenty brought to him not infrequent- 

 ly ; and on one occasion found the enormous number of forty eggs, 

 of which thirty-nine were normal and one undersized. He captured a 

 female on this nest, and says that she was in an emaciated condition, and 

 therefore, he believed, authoress of the whole forty eggs. Probably a 

 wild bird, with no extraneous aid in the way of artificial food, etc., 

 would be a good deal exhausted after such an effort, but a domestic hen 

 would not think it anything out of the way, nor would she be any the 

 worse for it. 



Hume's forty-five eggs varied from 2*22" to 2*58" in length and in 

 breadth between 1*65" and T78", averaging 2'41"xl , 72". The little 

 clutch found by Mr. Anderson, excluding the abnormally small one 

 averaged 2|"xlf", giving an average for the whole eighty-four of 

 2-45"* 1-74" almost. 



Jerdon says that the Nukhtas breed in July or August " in grass by 

 the sides of tanks, laying six to eight whitish eggs." Jerdon did not 

 however, know, nor did he care much about the oological part of 

 ornithology, and I do not think much weight need be attached, as a rule, 

 to what he says about nidification. 



The breeding time nearly all over India varies from the end of June 

 to the beginning of September, and probably depends much on when 

 the rains commence. Here, in Assam, where the rains, like the poor 

 are always with us, I think the birds begin to breed in the end, 

 or even in the beginning, of June. In Bengal they commence to breed 

 in early July. In the North- West in late July or August, sometimes 

 as late as September. In Burma they seem to breed in the two 



