ASARCOENIS SCUTULATA. 39 



diving Ducks, under the same circumstances, but it was sufficient to ensure 

 the capture o£ ahnost any fish. They are very mild, well-behaved birds, 

 and not, as a class, at all quarrelsome. Some tiny Whistling-Teal shared 

 their captivity, and were always treated with consideration and allowed 

 their share of food, &c. As already said, they very soon become tame, and 

 within a few weeks they all were tame enough to accept food from the 

 hands of those they knew well ; but generally when strangers appeared 

 they retired to their inner room. When not feeding, they almost invari- 

 ably sat on the perches and not on the ground, and they showed con- 

 siderable activity in turning about on them, at the same time they kept 

 their position almost entirely by balance and not grasp, as anything 

 i.ouching them at once upset them. 



Their trumpet-call was very seldom heard when caged, but about April 

 and May they were sometimes heard calling at early dawn and even more 

 rarely at sunset. 



I quite failed to induce them to breed, though one duck which died — 

 the only one I lost thus — contained eggs larger than a hen's eggs. This 

 was in the month of June. The birds paired regularly every May, and 

 the bases of the drakes' bills became swollen and red, but the ducks never 

 laid any eggs during the five years they were kept. 



The only egg I have of this species is one which was taken in the 

 Cachar Hills by one of my trackers at the place were the attempt was made 

 to have the birds driven up for a shot. The nest was taken from a deep 

 hollow, caused by decay in the first bifurcation in the trunk of a large tree 

 standing on the banks of the stream already descril^ed. The tree was a 

 very small thick one, and the hollow in which the egg was found was 

 said to be some twenty feet from the ground. The nest was described as 

 a mass of grass and other rubbish with a lining of feathers and down, 

 probably of the bird itself ; though, as none was shown me, I cannot be 

 certain of this. 



In Sadiya, whence I obtained a great number of birds and skins, the 

 Mikirs assured me that the birds sometimes made their nests in holes in 

 trees, sometimes made a rough nest on masses of branches, and at other 

 times made a grass and feather lined nest in scrub-jungle or grass at the 

 edge of pieces of water lying in jungle. 



The live birds were all obtained by setting innumerable nooses about 

 the edges of the waters frequented by them, and I was told that they v/ere 

 easy to set, as these ducks habitually resort to the same few feet of ground 

 when enter i no- or lea vino: the water. 



