INDIA N D UCKS AND THEIR A LLIES. 197 



15 or 16 feet from it. They do, however, sometimes select very lofty 

 situations, for Oates took one nest containing 10 eggs from a mango tree 

 about 30 feet above the ground. They are said also to breed sometimes 

 in old ruins, broken-down walls, etc. Oripps says, " They even lay their 

 eggs in the factory •chimney holes." They do not always make use of 

 places quite close to water, as a pair of these birds laid their eggs in a 

 gigantic tree standing in the Magistrate's compound in Rungpore. At 

 the back of the house there was a good-sized tank, frequented by a pair 

 of these birds, and as they were so constantly present, I hunted all 

 round the tank, in every tree, for the nest. However, it was not to be 

 found, though holes and hollows which looked suitable for nesting 

 purposes were common enough. Eventually I found the nest by 

 accident in a tree in front of the house, and full two hundred yards 

 from the tank. This was one of the nests, already mentioned, which 

 contained 22 eggs. I watched this nest very carefully, and on the six- 

 teenth day after it was found the chicks were hatched, and I then waited 

 anxiously to see how they would get to the water. They remained in the 

 nest that day, but the following morning, though I was out very soon 

 after daybreak, they were all in the tank, 15 out of the 22, 7 eggs being 

 addled, which I took. It was a great disappointment not seeing the 

 goslings taken from the nest to the water, and I have never yet seen it 

 done. A very intelligent native once told me that very early one morning 

 before it was light, he was fishing in a tank, or rather looking to his nets 

 which had been put down overnight, when he saw something flutter 

 heavily into the water from a tree in front of him and some twenty paces 

 distant. The bird returned to the tree, and again with much beating of 

 wings fluttered down to the surface of the tank, and this performance was 

 repeated again and again at intervals of some few minutes. At first he 

 could only make out that the cause of the commotion was a bird of some 

 kind, but after a few minutes he, remaining crouched amongst the 

 reeds and bushes, saw distinctly that it was a Cotton Teal, and that each 

 time it flopped into the water and rose again it left a gosling behind it. 

 These, he said, he could see were carried somehow in the feet, but the 

 parent bird seemed to find the carriage of its young no easy matter, 

 flew with difficulty, and fell into the water with some force. I do not 

 vouch for this man's story being true, but give it for what it is worth, 

 and believe it myself, 



