THE COTTON TEAL. 107 
enough to admit of ingress and egress, The contents had to be 
removed by means of an iron spoon, something like a soup 
ladle with an extra long handle.” 
Mr. Cripps writes :— 
“Very common in the districts of Dacca, Sylhet and Farid- 
pur during the rainy season, when they are found in the paddy 
fields and ‘bhils’ in pairs and small parties. In all those 
districts they breed in July and August, and invariably in 
cavities in trees, and holes in buildings, making a rough pad 
nest of fine grasses and twigs with feathers for a lining. I have 
seen a nest in a hole of a date tree, only seven feet off the ground, 
and alongside of a ryot’s house, and I have taken the eggs out 
of a niche in a factory chimney about 40 feet off the ground. 
Fight is the greatest number of eggs that I have found in one 
nest ; these birds never nest at any distance from water.” 
In the northern parts of Ceylon this species also is said to 
breed from January to March. 
The eggs are oval, scarcely more pointed at one end than the 
other. They are miniatures of those of the preceding species, 
of a delicate ivory white colour, very smooth to the touch, but 
scarcely so glossy as those of the Nukhta, and, as a rule, much 
less liable to become soiled during incubation than those of 
this latter species. 
In length the eggs vary from 1°54 to 1°75, and in breadth from 
1°17 to 1°38; but the average of twenty-six is 1°7 by 1°20. 
THE MALES are rather larger than the females, and in both sexes 
full-plumaged birds vary somewhat in size, probably according 
to age. 
Maies—Length, 12°62 to 13°5 ; expanse, 20°5 to 24'0; wing, 
62550 6:7 5-; tail from vent, 2°32 to 325; tarsus, 1°0 to-.106:; 
bill from gape, 1°08 to 1:25 ; weight, 8 ozs to nearly II‘o ozs. 
The irides vary from dark brown to crimson, the latter, I 
believe, in the breeding season; the legs and feet from light 
yellowish to dirty sap green, with the webs and claws black ; 
the bill in the breeding season black, at other times dark grey 
above, yellowish on the lower mandible, and more like that 
of the female. 
Females.—Length, 12°5 to 12°75 ; expanse, 21'0 to 220; wing, 
Gi25)tO 6-27-tall trom, vent,-2°6 to 3°O > tarsus, 1:0 tto 1°71; bill 
from gape, 1°04 to 12 ; weight, 6°5 ozs. to 90 ozs. 
The irides are dark brown. I do not know whether they ever 
become red in this sex. The legs and feet dirty green ; webs 
and claws black. Ihave no record of these parts being yellow- 
ish, as they often are in the male, but perhaps they also 
become so; upper mandible dark greenish brown, lighter at the 
sides ; lower mandible dull yellow, brownish pink towards the 
sides, 
