Butler says, " I always select this species in a drive to fire at in
preference to most of the others."
These ducks are occasionally, but not very often, caught by
hand and in nets like other species ; and in the south of the
Peninsula, Mr. Albert Theobald says, that the shikaris make
up large bundles of rushes, which they float on the water, and
then resting their guns on these, paddle up softly, keeping the
bundle between themselves and the ducks, and so get easy and
close shots at these ducks, which, as already noticed, are not
amongst the more wary and suspicious kinds.
T H E GREY DUCK breeds, in suitable situations, pretty well
throughout the vast tract above indicated in defining its range ;
and in the drier portions of this it is only during the breeding
season that it is at all common.
This breeding season varies a great deal with locality; in
the North-West Provinces, Oudh and the eastern portions
of Rajputana and the Punjab, it only breeds, so far as I
yet know, once a year, laying during the latter half of July,
August and the first-half of September. In Sindh it lays in
April and May, and again in September and October. In
Gujarat it certainly lays in October, and in Mysore in November
and December, though whether in these two last-named
provinces also, it has a second spring brood, I have not yet
ascertained.
The nest appears to be generally placed upon the ground,
and rarely in the fork of some flat branch just above the
surface of the ground or water, in low dense cover of grass,
rush and the like, to be of the usual duck type and to contain
from 6 to 12 eggs.
I have myself only found two nests. The first, which I found
on the 1st August at Rahun, was placed on a drooping branch
of a tree, which hung down from the canal bank into a thick
clump of rushes growing in a jhil that near the bridge fringes
the canal. The nest was about nine inches above the surface
of the water, was entirely concealed in the high rushes, and was
firmly based on a horizontal trifurcation of the bough. It was
composed of dry rush, and had a good deep hollow in which
clown, feathers, and fine grass were intermingled. The nest
was at least a foot in diameter, perhaps more, and I suppose
two inches thick in the centre and four inches at the sides. It
contained three fresh eggs.
The second nest I found on the 29th August in a large
jhil, half-swamp, halflake, in front of Moonj, (also in the
Etawah District) on the ground, in a low, thick bed of sedge
on an island about two yards square, to reach which a man
had to swim. I did not see the nest (though I saw the bird
flushed and the eggs taken); but it was described to me much
as I have described the nest that I myself examined. The
nest contained six fresh eggs.
Captain G. F. L. Marshall writes : " I found a nest in the
Muttra District on the 31st August 1871. It was a well-made,
cup-shaped nest of grass, fresh plucked, about 9 inches across,
3 inches deep, and the sides fully 2 inches thick; it was
sparingly lined with down and feathers from the breast of
the parent bird, and contained seven brownish white eggs. It
was placed on the ground in a slight hollow amongst thick
<?rass, about 18 inches high, under the trees on the outer side
of the canal bank, and about a yard from the edge of a small
excavation pit, full of water. The bird was on the nest, and
when roused flew with difficulty."
Writing from Sindh, Mr. Doig says : " On the 28th of April
I found a nest containing eight eggs, all incubated. I saw the
bird fly on to a small island covered with long grass about a foot
high, which was out in the middle of the Nana, so suspecting
that there was a nest, I went off in a boat, and after some
searching found the nest, the old bird nearly letting me catch
her before flying away. The nest was made of grass and
lined with feathers from the birds themselves.
"On the 1st of May I found another nest on another island,
which had contained ten incubated eggs ; but the eggs were
scattered all about and broken, only one remaining whole.
The nest itself had been pulled to pieces and scattered all
about.
" Shortly before getting to the island I noticed a large
family of otters playing about on it, who all bolted on seeing
me approach in my canoe, so that I have very little doubt that
they were the culprits. It could not possibly have been crows,
as none of the eggs were pecked, but simply broken ; besides
if it had been crows, I should have seen them near the place ;
and, besides, they would be certain to have eaten them. This
nest was also in long grass at the foot of a stump of an old
tamarisk tree.
" The nest having been disturbed, the bird made another
nest about 4 feet from it, and laid again the following day
(2nd May). On the 23rd June I observed flappers, just able
to fly, in the same locality, and again I caught young birds,
not able to fly, on the 8th of November."
Captain Butler remarks: " I found several nests of this
species at Langraij between Deesa and Ahmedabad in
October 1876. Some contained fresh eggs, some stale eggs—
of which a few had been sucked by some kind of animal,—•
some incubated eggs, and many contained only shells, the
young having hatched off. The nests were, in every single
instance, placed in long grass, growing either by the side of
tanks or else on mounds of earth overgrown with grass, or
small islands in the tanks, In some instances, the nests were