600 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



when, as is sometimes the case, they feed on fish, shell-fish, water- 

 insects, &c., they at once assume a rank fishy taste which no amount of 

 seasoting will obscure. 



Hume found one which had gorged itself on small fish about an 

 inch in length, aud I dissected one which bad eaten, as far as I could 

 see, nothing but the tiny red crabs which swarm in such countless 

 myriads along the shores of rivers, swamps and back waters in the 

 Sunderbunds, the waters of which are brackish. This was the only 

 specimen, the contents of whose stomach I noted whilst shooting in 

 Je?sore and Khulna; but all we shot and tried to eat tasted the same, and 

 I have no doubt that they too had been feeding on crabs. 



Here in Cuchar and Sylhet I should call the Red-crested Pochard one 

 of the very best of ducks for the table. 



They are strong fliers and go at a good pace, but they are very slow 

 in o-ettino" up oflF the water, and take some time to get their pace up. 



Finn says that their note is a harsh croak sounding like " kurr," 

 This is the same syllable as that used by Hume to represent their note, he 

 calling their cry a " deep grating kurr." He also adds : " Occasionally 

 the males only, I think, emit a sharp sibilant note— a sort of whistle 

 quite different from that of the Wigeon and yet somewhat reminding 

 one of that." 



From a sporting point of view, the Red-crested Pochard is all that 

 can be desired. About as smart as they make them, he seems to have 

 special aptitude for judging the length of range of different guns ; and 

 a flock mav be caught once, but seldom twice, whatever distance the 

 gun may reach. 



They swim so fast that they can by this means alone generally escape, 

 and they are often very loath to rise when they can thus get out of 

 shot. Their swimming powers, manner of packing, and capacitude for 

 diving are so well shown by Hume's account of his shooting in the 

 Etawah district that yet again I indent on him wholesale:—" All night 

 long ... I had heard water-fowl coming in, and the next morn- 

 ing, before dawn, I was out in my punt, working softly round the 

 margin to the western side, so as to have the fowl, when twilight broke^ 

 against the daylight sky. I soon made out by their cries that the 

 mass of the fowls were Pochards, that there were a vast number of them, 

 and that a great number of them belonged to the present species. Day 



