568 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



and that they lent it every year, after their young had flown, to the 

 Whistlino- Teal. I should have verified this the next spring but left the 

 Mynpooree district, and never again had a chance of visiting the spot.'' 



Normally and typically both our Indian Dendrocycnce build nests on 

 trees or lay their eggs in their hollows ; often, however, they make use 

 of the deserted nests of other birds, and sometimes they build nests on 

 or near the ground in reeds, grass, or even bushes. The recorded and 

 authenticated instances of the common Whistling Teal laying its eggs 

 in nests placed on the ground are not numerous. 



Barnes, in Vol. I of this Journal, recorded the fact that in Neemuch 

 he never found their nests on trees but always amongst rushes growing 

 on the edges of banks. 



Oates, in " Birds of British Burmah," says that he has " Frequently 

 found its nest in Pegu in July and August, a mass of dead leaves and 

 grass placed on a low thick cane-brake in paddy land and containing six 

 very smooth white eggs. . . . Those nests I myself found were 

 invariably situated as above described, on cane-brakes." 



Jerdon also says that: " It generally, perhaps, breeds in the drier 

 patches of grass on the ground, often at a considerable distance from 

 water, carefully concealing its nest by intertwining some blades of 

 grass over it." 



Lastly, Legge notes in " Birds of Ceylon": " It sometimes builds on 

 the ground among rushes or tussocks, and even in reeds, the nest 

 half floating in water." 



In " Game Birds " Hume's notes on the nidification of this species are 

 verv full and interesting, containing practically every known situation 

 for the nest. Thus Capt. Butler took the nest from a tussock of grass, 

 growing out of a dried stick fence ; Mr. Doig and he took them fre- 

 quently from creeper-covered tamarisk -jungle growing in water, and 

 the former also found them placed on the tops of clumps of bull-rushes. 



Mr. J. Davidson also found the nests on the ground in Mysore, 

 where they were placed in tufts of grass which formed islands in the 

 middle of weedy tanks. 



Cripps found that in Dacca, Furreedpur and Sylhet they breed both 

 on trees and on the ground. 



Personally I have never peen, a ne^t actually on the ground, but 

 have taken one or two from situations verv close to it. In Cachar at 



