550 JO URN A L, BO MB A Y NA TURA L HIS TOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



No. XVII.-THE BREEDING OF THE COMB DUCK. 



In Mr. Stuart Baker's valuable paper on Indian Ducks and their Allies, in 

 the last number of the Journal, I notice the remark that this duck " is one 

 of those which invariably resort to trees for nesting purposes." The follow- 

 ing incident will show that this is not invariably the case. On the 30th of 

 August, eighteen years ago, I was wandering about with my gun on the 

 banks of a small brackish stream, near Kharagora, when a female Comb Duck 

 got up and went off. I fired and missed her. She flew on for some distance, 

 then turned and came back straight for me, and I killed her. She was 

 handed over to the cook, and in the course of the day he came to say that 

 he had found an egg in her. It was ready to be laid and there was no ap- 

 pearance of any more, so I concluded that the bird had made its nest and 

 laid all its eggs but one when it had the misfortune to fall in my way. Next 

 day I took two men with me to the place and began a systematic search for 

 the nest. There were scarcely any trees in the neighbourhood, but many 

 patches of rank rushes, and among these I hunted long without success. At 

 last one of my men, who was on the other side of the stream, signalled to me 

 and pointed to a hole in the bank, which at that part was quite perpen- 

 dicular, I crossed and, looking into the hole, found sixteen eggs which 

 exactly matched the one taken out of the body of the bird. They were lyiny 

 on a bed of twigs and quill feathers of some large bird, with a little lining of 

 down and some fragments of a snake's skin. The hole was about five feet 

 from the ground and two feet deep, the entrance being about 9 inches wide 

 by 6 deep. The hole went into the bank quite horizontally, and there was 

 nothing in the way of a ledge to alight on at the entrance, so the bird mast 

 have popped in as a pigeon does. Mr. Stuart Baker says that "their flight 

 has been variously described," but I think such a feat fully justifies his own 

 opinion that tbe Comb Duck is not exactly a clumsy bird. I believe that two 

 of those seventeen eggs are now in the museum of the Bombay Natural 

 History Society. I set twelve of them under a hen, but they met with an 

 accident by a wild cat. 



E. H. AITKEN. 



Dalhol, 15th January, 1898. 



No. XVIII— THE KOL-BHALU. 



The correspondence quoted on pages 310 and 311 of this volume of this 

 journal brings forward once more for consideration the peculiar cry of the 

 "Kol-Bhalu." I am able to add, in an important manner, to the evidence 

 already recorded in favour of this brute being a jackal. 



Two mornings ago while riding through one of the finest Reserves in this 

 Forest Division I observed two jackals cross a " fire break," which I was in- 

 specting, about 30 yards in front of me. They were seen by a " Brinjara" 



