INDIAN DVCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 607 



to the East and South the end of November is as early as one may 

 expect to get them in any numbers, though a few will alwajs be seen 

 in the beginning of that month — stragglers, perhaps even earlier. I 

 should not, however, call it a-very common duck anywhere to the East 

 of the Bengal Presidency, and I remember when shooting in the Sundor- 

 bunds this Pochard was never in any but very small numbers, although 

 the country all about there is so admirably suited to all its requirements. 



As regards the flocks it collects in, this would seem to depend almost 

 entirely on the country it visits and its accommodation in the way of water. 

 Thus where there are huge jheols, morasses and lakes covered in part 

 with jungle and in part having open expanses of water of some depth, 

 free of vegetation of a heavy character, they will be found in thousands ; 

 elsewhere they will bo found in small flocks, pairs and rarely single birds. 

 There is practically no kind of water that they will not visit sometimes in 

 greater or smaller numbers, but, preferentially, they leave alone shallow 

 jheels and waters, and also such as have the vegetation everywhere 

 very dense ; on the other hand, they do not care for (juite open water 

 ■without vegetation of any kind whatsoever. 



Even as to this last, however, there is no absolutely fixed rule, for 

 they sometimes visit the sea itself, keeping, as a rule, then to harbours, 

 estuaries, &g. When shot in such places, they, like most other ducks 

 got under the same circumstances, will bo found to have a very rank 

 and fishy taste, though, when shot inland on their more ordinary haunts, 

 they are very uniformly excellent in flavour. Their bad flavour is, of 

 course, due to their own food which, when they take to the seashore 

 consists of tiny marine shell-fish, fishes, &c.; whereas, when in fresh 

 water, their food consists mainly of a vegetable diet, though, like all 

 ducks, they are more or less omnivorous. 



A near relation to this bird is the famous canvas-back of America, 

 so dear to the epicures of that continent, differing little from our bird 

 in coloration, though it is rather larger and also slightly paler below^. 

 So close are the two birds in appearance, however, that, as Finn relates, 

 a wretched poulterer in England, who had received, and was selling, a 

 consignment of canvas-backs from America in ice, was prosecuted for 

 selling pochards out of season. Most of us would probably think it 

 was a very good thing, too, if such prosecutions helped to enforce a 

 close time in America, as well as in England. 



