24 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X11. 
very short distance, after which it resetiles and is then harder than 
ever to again get off the water. 
It has, according to Maumann, the power of swimming in the water 
with only head and neck projecting, in the same manner as birds of the 
genus Plotus and the Cormorants do. 
Most authors agree that it swims with its tail upright as observed 
by Finn, Chill, Field, and others in India, but Chapman and Buck in 
their “‘ Wild Spain ” give quite a different description :— 
“¢ The most extraordinary wild fowl we ever met with,—gambolling 
and splashing about on the water, chasing each other, now above now 
beneath its surface like a school of porpoises ; they appeared half birds 
half water tortoises.......+. Presently the strangers entered a small reed- 
margined bight, swimming very deep, only their turtle-shaped backs 
and heavy heads in sight......... with small wing like a grebe, and 
long, stiff tails like a cormorant—the latter being carried under water 
as a rudder, is not visible when the bird is swimming.” 
It isa fresh water species, and, as far as I can ascertain, does not 
haunt coasts and salt water. 
It breeds also inland on lakes and marshes and also on small eae 
placing its nest in amongst dense herbage at the edges and always 
well concealed. It is a typical Duck’s nest, containing perhaps more 
wet weeds as rotten material in the base than do other ducks’ but like 
them well lined with down which, in this case, is said to be pure 
white. 
The eggs vary from six to ten, are a chalky white in colour, often 
much discoloured and stained, very large for the size of the bird and 
remarkable for their very rough surface, so rough indeed, is it 
that this egg is chosen to represent those having rough surfaces in the 
National collection of typical eggs. 
A few eggs are said to have a very faint green tinge. 
The length varies between 2°6" and 2°8" and the breadth 
between 1°95" and 2:05." Most eggs are almost perfect ellipses, a few 
having one end rather smaller than the other. 
(To be continued.) 
