ANAS rCECILORHYNCHA. 137 



^lanco from the state of the inuch-trampkHl blades o£ rice and the 

 numerous feathers lying about. He says that he has had good sport by 

 concealing himself in such places on bright moonlight nights, and 

 shooting the birds as they fly over. He has also been successful in 

 getting capital sport with them over a decoy. The Musalman Manipuris 

 catch numbers of the flappers with spears and nets ; and thev sometimes 

 form fiart of the bag ^vhen the natives in other parts of India have a 

 duck-drive into nets. 



In Southern India (Mysore ?) Mr. Theobald says that the shikaris 

 get within easy shot of these ducks by making bundles of rushes and 

 weeds, and pushing these along the surface of the water in front of 

 them, the bundles affording a floating rest for their guns and also 

 concealing the approach of the shooter. 



Hume says : " The breeding-season varies a great deal with the locality. 

 In the North-West Provinces, Oudh, and the Eastern portions of Eajputana 

 and the Punjab, it only breeds, so far as I yet know, once a year, laying 

 during the latter half of July, August, and the first half of September. 

 In Sind it lays i]i April and May, and again in September and October. 

 In Guzerat it certainly lays in October and in Mysore in November and 

 December, though whether in these two last-named provinces it has also 

 a second brood I have not yet ascertained." 



In Bengal I think it lays principally in July and August ; but a few 

 birds are earlier, and these may have a second brood, for nests have been 

 taken as late as October. On the huge l)heels extending over the 

 whole of the north of Mymensingh and Sylhet these ])irds have Ijeen 

 seen accompanied by their young in April, and again their eggs have 1)een 

 taken in Auoust. 



As a ride, the nest is rather a compact, well-made structure, of a 

 broad, rather irregular cup-shape, made principally of grasses, rushes, and 

 weeds, and lined — in almost all cases — with down taken from the breasts of 

 the ducks themselves. Sometimes there is no down at all, as in the nests 

 taken by Captain Butler at Langraij between Deesa and Ahmedabad. 



Captain G. F. L. Marshall gives the dimensions of a nest taken ))y him 

 as follows : " About 9 inches across, 3 deep, and the sides fully 2 thick."'' 

 This is perhaps a trifle smaller than the average nest, as the size depends 

 so much on the compactness with which it is built. 



Major Woods, I. M.S., sends me very interesting notes from Manijuir 

 on the breeding of this duck. He writes : — " Here the birds generally 

 pair about the beginning of April ; but I have found a nest in n flooded 



