130 THE RUDDY SHELLDRAKE OR BRAHMINY DUCK. 
and constancy to, each other, no sacred reverence attaches to 
them. It is otherwise in Buddist countries. “It is,” says Mr. 
Oates, “the sacred and national bird of the Burmese, and the 
native name of the Rangoon District is derived from it.” “In 
Mongolia,” says Pére David, “it is the object of a religious res- 
pect on the part of the Lamas,” and Prjevalsky too says that 
“the Mongols consider the bird sacred.” 
THE RUDDY SHELLDRAKE breeds, within our limits, only in the 
high central portion of the interior of the Himalayas. It nests 
always in these hills, in holes, in cliffs overhanging, or at any 
rate in more or less close proximity to, streams, lakes, or pools, 
at an elevation of not less than 12,000, and cften as high as 
16,000 feet. 
In other countries, though cliffs are favourite resorts every- 
where, they also nest in all kinds of queer places. 
Prjevalsky says:—“ They build in holes or clefts in the ground, 
and sometimes even in the fireplaces of the villages deserted 
by the Mongols, and in the latter places the females while hatch- 
ing get almost quite black with soot.’ Messrs. Elwes and 
Buckley say, that in the Dobrudscha, where it is very common, 
“the nest is very difficult to find, as it is always in a hole, 
sometimes in the middle of acorn field, and the male bird keeps 
watch near by to call the female off her eggs when any one 
approaches.” 
In parts of Southern Russia and Dauria, it lays in holes in 
trees and even of fallen logs, and in deserted nests of birds of 
prey. Tristram found it breeding in a cliff in Northern Galilee 
amongst Griffon Vultures in May, and in the Eastern Atlas 
associating with the Raven, the Black Kite and Egyptian 
Vulture. 
So too in Ladakh its nests have been found associated with 
one of the Tibetan Raven. 
So far as I can ascertain it lays with us from early in May to 
near the end of June, according to situation and season. 
The nest holes contain usually a thick pad of down and 
feathers, chiefly those of the bird itself, but at times mixed, the 
natives aver, with those of the Barred-headed Goose. 
The number of the eggs are variously stated by natives at 
from 6 to 12, but Dybowsky says, writing of them in Dauria, 
that they lay from 12 to 16 eggs. 
{ have seen the old birds with crowds of ducklings on several 
of the Tibetan Lakes towards the end of June or early in July, 
but this was in old days, when I cared for none of these things, 
and I never climbed up to examine a nest-hole, of which many 
have been pointed out to me in the cliffs, conspicuous by the 
droppings of the birds. But I am quite certain that the 
generality of the broods did not contain above eight young 
