QUERQUEDULA CIRCIA. 195 



India, Ijevond the circumstantial evidence given by Colonel Irby^s young- 

 birds. 



They Ijreed throughout the north temperate zone in Europe and 

 Asia. In the former continent they breed as t"ar south as France, North 

 Italy, Greece, and throughout the Balkan States and Russia into Asia ; 

 in parts o£ Asia Minor, South Siberia, Manchuria, Amoor, and Northern 

 China, but not in Japan, as far as is yet known. 



They desert the larger open pieces of ^vater during the breeding-season, 

 and resort to smaller pools and ponds, fens and bogs, rarely the mossy and 

 weed-covered borders of streams, and yet more rarely the reed-fringed 

 shores of lakes, &c. 



Although so commonly found on the sea-coast and on salt-water creeks 

 and on tidal waters, yet the Grarganey seems always to breed inland, and I 

 can find no record of their nests and eggs being taken in such places. 



The nest is the usual mass of weed, reeds, and soft vegetation made Ijy 

 most ducks ; and it is said that occasionally they are made of sticks and 

 twMgs, but this, I imagine, is very exceptional. 



The lining of down and feathers varies much : in some it is very dense 

 and copious, in others very scanty ; normally it is neither the one nor the 

 other, rather scanty, however, than otherwise. 



The nest is most often placed in some thick tuft of coarse grass, bed of 

 reeds, or tangle of shrubs and grass in fen land, or on the borders' of some 

 vegetation-covered piece of water. The eggs vary in number from six to 

 thirteen, the number most often found being from eight to ten. 



Morris oives the number laid as eight to ten or even fourteen. 

 According to him, incubation lasts twenty-one days, and the young birds 

 follow their mother to the water as soon as hatched. 



The eggs, at least all I have seen, were quite indistinguishable from 

 those of the Common Teal in shape, texture, and size, and I think in 

 colour. Hume says that they have perhaps a more yellow creamy tinge, 

 and though a few may be more butt' or yellow in tone than any of that 

 bird, many are no deeper at all. 



Dresser gives the average as 1*87 x 1"35 inches ; those in my collection 

 average 1*82 x l"u6, making them out to be rather shorter and rather 

 broader. 



o2 



