790 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



tanks or weedy j heels. The flight is slow and rather heavy, and 

 during flight it frequently utters the peculiar sibilant, whistling 

 call from which it derives its popular name. It generally, perhaps, 

 breeds in the drier patches of grass on the ground, often at a 

 considerable distance from water, carefully concealing its nest by 

 intertwining some blades of grass over it. Occasionally, however, 

 it builds its nest in hollows of trees, and not unfrequently in nests 

 made of sticks, and that have, in some cases at all events, been 

 used by Cormorants or small Herons. The eggs are white, 

 generally six or eight in number. 



Gould figures one of the Australian species under the name of 

 D. arcuata, Cuv., the Javanese bird, but it appears to me to be 

 quite distinct. 



953. Dendrocygna major, Jerdon, 



Jerdon, Cat. 377 — Blyth, Cat. 1761— Jerdon, 111. Ind. Orn., 

 pi. 23 — D. vagans, Eyton, Mss — figured under that name in 

 Fraser, Zool. typ. 



The Large Whistling -teal. 



Descr. — Head and neck chesnut, darker on the top of the head, 

 whence a dark line extends down the back of the neck ; chin, 

 throat, and foreneck pale ; in the centre of the neck there is a 

 broad patch of small, whitish, somewhat hackled feathers ; upper 

 part of the back and scapulars deep brown, the feathers edged 

 with chesnut ; lower part of the back black ; lesser wing-coverts 

 dark marone, the other wing-coverts, wings, and tail, dusky black ; 

 lower plumage chesnut ; under tail-coverts (and a few of the upper 

 tail-coverts also) yellowish white ; the feathers of the flanks much 

 lengthened, chesnut on one side, and yellowish-white on the other. 



Bill plumbeous ; irides brown ; orbits pale livid ; legs and feet 

 dark plumbeous. Length 21 inches ; wing 9^; tail 2% ; tarsus 2£; 

 mid-toe 3^ ; bill at front nearly 2. 



This species of Whistling-teal appears to be generally spread 

 throughout India, but is somewhat rare in most parts of the country : 

 it is most common in the western districts. I found it tolerably 

 abundant in the Deccan at Jalnah, indeed as common as the lesser 



