r14 THE WHISTLING TEAL. 
(2ud).—Old nests, particularly those belonging to Crows, 
Herons, &c.; and 
(3rd@).—Thorny scrub or grass on the edge of swamps.” 
_ Capt. Butler writes from Deesa: “On the 24th of August 1876, 
I found a nest of this species containing ten eggs, slightly 
incubated ; it was placed in a tussock of grass growing out of a 
dead stick fence that had become submerged from the height 
of the water. It was well concealed, and consisted of a quanti- 
ty of dry grass and sedge trodden down into a good thick 
pad. The old bird sat close, and when I looked into the 
tussock of grass, flapped off the nest into the water like a 
wounded bird, swam 5 or 6 yards, and then dived. In about 
five minutes both birds (gand 9?) returned on the wing, and 
after flying uneasily round and round in circles close to me 
for a few seconds, settled in some short grass on the bank about 
Io yards from me, and tried to draw me away from the nest by 
cackling and running, or rather waddling through the grass as 
if wounded. A day or two latter, I found several young broods 
about a week old, and in two instances amalgamated broods 
numbering about twenty-two young birds and two old Ducks.” 
Again writing from Sind he says :— 
“Mr. Doig took a nest containing ten fresh eggs in the 
Eastern Nara, Sind, on the 22nd June 1878, and later on, during 
the last week of July, in another part of the district where the 
water had risen later, he and I found a few more nests contain- 
ing eight to ten fresh eggs. At that season of the year large 
dhunds are filled with water by the overflow of the Indus, and 
large tracts of thickly wooded country, which are dry in the 
hot weather, become converted into huge lakes, dotted all over 
with trees, and patches of partly submerged tamarisk jungle. 
Many of these trees are overgrown with a dense green creeper, 
and on these trees, in a little arbour in the middle of the creeper, 
at heights varying from 3 to 8 feet above the surface of the 
water, we invariably found the nests. The birds were very 
plentiful, and of course all in pairs, and the nests were not 
difficult to discover as the old birds were quite tame, and 
as a rule were sitting on the tree, one generally on the nest, 
the other outside keeping guard. The nest consisted of a 
moderate-sized pad of green twigs, plucked from the creeper 
in which it was built, which, becoming moist from the bird’s 
feet, usually caused the eggs to become more or less marked 
with green Stains.” 
Mr. Doig himself notes that “the Whistling Teal breeds 
in great numbers on the Nara, (Hyderabad, Sind,) earlier 
in some portions than in others, At one place, on the 
23rd of June, I found a nest containing 10 fresh eggs. 
The nest was simply composed of leaves of the large 
bulrush trodden down, so as to make a platform, and was on 
the top of a clump of these bulrushes at about 10 feet from the 
