THE PIN-TAIL. 193 
two) I have noted, “stomach almost entirely full of small fragile 
fresh-water shells,” and in five others I have recorded shells as 
amongst the food found on dissection in the gizzards. 
The Pin-tail, when undisturbed, is a silent bird by day, and 
rarely utters any sound, even when feeding, though I have, 
when lying up pretty close to them, hearda little low chattera- 
tion going on, more like the low clucking of hens than anything 
else. But when alarmed by day, and pretty constantly by 
night, they utter their peculiar soft quack,—a note such as one 
might expect a Mallard, not quite sure whether he meant to 
speak or not, to emit—quite different from the sharp quack 
of the Gadwall, softer and less strident than that of the 
Mallard, but still not at all feeble, on the contrary audible at 
a great distance. 
I could single out the Pin-tail’s quack at any time, and 
yet I am wholly unable to explain, in words, its peculiar and 
characteristic tone. 
On the whole, I think, that next to the Mallard the Pin-tail 
ts the best duck for the table in India, for here (it is different 
at home) I have never come across one with a fishy or 
unpleasant flavour. 
THE PIN-TAIL cannot, I believe, breed with us. Its nidification 
range is far more northern ; and while in many places it breeds 
well within the Arctic Circle, it rarely breeds, I think, much 
south of the 5oth degree North Latitude.* It laysin May 
or June according to locality ; the nest is placed on the ground 
generally in marshes, and not on the margins of large pieces of 
water. It is made of long pieces of bleached grass, rush, twigs or 
anything that comes to hand, and is lined with down from the 
mother’s breast mingled with a few feathers. 
The eggs, from six to nine in number, are rather small for 
the size of the bird; they are regular ovals, smooth, but with 
little gloss, with a pale yellowish green tinge. An egg from 
Finland, collected by Wolley, measures exactly 2°0 by 1'5, 
and this too Dresser gives as the average of the eggs se got 
in Finland, but he speaks of others from Jutland measuring 
222 by. 14. 
THIS DUCK varies very widely in dimensions and weight, the 
former, especially in the case of the males, owing to the different 
degrees in which the tails are developed. 
* It breeds in Northern Yarkand about Maralbashi. Dr. Scully says :— 
* The Pin-tail Duck was occasionally seen near Yarkand in March, but only one 
specimen (a female) was obtained. Twoexperienced Yarkandi bird-catchers gave 
me the following information about this species :—The male bird is a/a, z.e., pied 
black (or dark coloured) and white; it isa seasonal visitant only to Eastern Tur- 
kestan, arriving in spring and migrating to Hindostan at the beginning of winter, and 
it breeds in the neighbourhood of Maralbashi, laying from ten to twelve eggs.” 
Al 
