INDIAN PYGMY GOOSE or COTTON TEAL 109 



(Finn, 1901). A. Anderson (1874) watched a pair in the act of selecting a nesting site. 

 They both flew to the tree together but only the female entered the hole, while the 

 male sat on a bough watching for her exit. When she reappeared they both flew away 

 together, uttering their peculiar cackling sound. The visits were repeated every 

 fifteen or twenty minutes, but the drake never entered the nest hole. The nest is 

 usually, if not always, placed in hollows, ordinarily in trees not more than a few 

 feet above the level of the ground or water, and very seldom over fifteen or sixteen 

 feet high. There is one record of thirty feet in a mango tree (E. W. Oates, 1883), and 

 another of forty feet in a niche of a factory chimney (Cripps, quoted by Hume and 

 Marshall, 1879). Trees selected are frequently at a considerable distance from the 

 water. At times they nest in more unusual sites, for Styan (1891) says that in the 

 Yangtse Basin they frequent roofs of houses, and especially chimneys where they 

 are said to breed. Jerdon (1864) also mentions their nesting in old ruined houses, 

 temples and old chimneys, while other situations that have been noted are niches in 

 brickwork (Simson, 1882), and old buildings (Legge, 1880). Two observers, Blewitt 

 (quoted by Hume and Marshall, 1879) and Legge (1880), maintain that they at 

 least occasionally nest on the ground or on the water! 



The hollow itself is generally of considerable depth and such as have small en- 

 trances seem to be preferred by these birds. According to Hume and Marshall 

 (1879) there is little lining to the nest beyond crumbling fragments of decayed 

 wood, but Legge (1880) declares that at times the nest is lined with feathers, and 

 Cripps (in Hume and Marshall, 1879) states that it is a "rough pad nest of fine 

 grasses and twigs with feathers for a lining." A clutch numbers ordinarily from 

 eight to fourteen eggs, ten being probably the average, and unusually large clutches 

 have numbered sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-two eggs, these last quite certainly to 

 be ascribed to two females. According to E. W. Oates (1902) the eggs are "generally 

 truly elliptical in form, occasionally compressed at the smaller end, very smooth and 

 glossy, and cream color. They measure from 39 mm. to 44.5 mm. in length, and 

 from 29.7 mm. to 35 mm. in breadth." Connected with this Goose Teal there are, 

 as with all hole-nesting ducks, the usual attractive anecdotes of mothers carrying 

 their young to the water upon their backs or between their feet. Unfortunately no 

 competent observer has actually witnessed the proceeding, so that further details 

 seem to be, as yet, quite futile. I find no information regarding the habits of the 

 male during the incubation period and afterward. 



Status of Species. The older writers (Jerdon, 1864 ; Hume and Marshall, 1879) 

 remark on the great abundance of this species in Bengal, as does E. W. Oates 

 (1883)on its plentifulness in Burma. So far no recent writers have mentioned any 

 considerable decrease in its numbers. Baker (1908) described them as swarming 

 in thousands and outnumbered only by the Whistling Teal. Although netted in 



