104 INDIAN DUCKS. 



be fed out o£ the ha ml, and even strano-ers .seem to in no way distract 

 them. 



In captivity they whisth^ freely as they walk and swim al)out, and when 

 called to soon get into the habit of whistling in reply. They have a curious 

 propensity for walking very great distances, when tame, in search of food, 

 returning home in the evenings, &c., and will thus often walk several 

 hundred yards rather than fly. AVhen there are several birds all kept 

 together, they nearly always walk along in a line just as geese so often do. 



No article on ducks could possibly be complete without Hume^^ story 

 of the Whistling-Teal, Crows, Cat, and Dogs, so it must be here quoted 

 in full :— 



" I once saw a good large, half-wild village cat spring down upon a 

 duck, which was sitting on her nest in a broad four-pronged fork of a 

 mango tree. The duck did not whistle in the usual manner, she positively 

 screamed ; in a second the drake dashed at the cat, and to my surprise 

 down came a black crow (C macrorlqinclius), not, as anyone would have 

 thought, to steal the eggs in the confusion, but to assail the cat with his 

 •claws and beak as if his own homestead had been attacked. In less time 

 than it takes to describe, the cat was squalling in her turn, and fled up one 

 of the branches, pursued closely by the drake and the crow, wdio w'ere 

 immediately joined by another crow, and the three made it so hot for 

 pussy that she sprang to the ground, where my dogs, aroused by the 

 uproar above (the noise those two crow'S made was astounding), w-ere 

 awaiting her, and before I could interfere, and before she quite recovered 

 the jump of some 35 or 40 feet, killed her outright. But the strangest 

 part of the business was that the villagers assured me that this nest was the 

 crow's own nest, and that therj lent it every year, after their young had 

 flown, to the Whistling-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 J )en<lro('ycinr l)aild nosts 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 other bushes. The recorded and authenti- 

 cated instances of the Connnon Whistling-Teal laying its eggs in nests 

 placed on the ground are, however, also faii"ly numerous, 



Barnes, in vol. i. of the B. N. H. S. Join-nal, recorded the fact that in 

 Neemuch he never found their nests on trees, but alwavs amongst rushes 

 _growing on the edoes of baidcs. 



