362 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



which distinguish the adult. The dark colour, moreover, 

 only extends to the head and upper-neck, the breast- 

 plumage being- still incomplete — merely mottled browns 

 and greys, very different to the velvety purple-blacks and 

 clean-cut waistcoat of maturity. The fine grey mantle 

 is also but half developed ; and in this stage, though the 

 process of change appears irregular, and varies in different 

 individuals, the bulk of the young scaup-drakes remain 

 so long as we have opportunities of observing them on our 

 coast — that is up to March. 



The pochard is now a very scarce bird on the north- 

 east coast. Fifty years ago, according to the records 

 of that period and the recollection of old fowlers, it 

 was an abundant species, and well known to both 

 gunners and flight-shooters. There appears to be no 

 assignable reason for its withdrawal ; but whatever the 

 cause may be, the fact remains that at the present day 

 the pochard is all but unknown. A chance straggler 

 may now and then turn up in August, or while on 

 migration, and a few years back I heard of two or three 

 being obtained by flight-shooters in winter, but I have 

 only thrice myself met with this duck on the north-east 

 coast. The first time was in January, during severe frost. 

 It formed one of a little bunch of about a dozen ducks 

 which were sitting on the point of a sandspit. We were 

 in the act of "setting up" to them, when another gunner, 

 concealed from our view by an intervening sand-bank, 

 fired and killed six of them. Five were scaups, and 

 the sixth a pochard in immature plumage. Then on 

 November 17th, 1889, we fell in with twenty -one 

 pochards; but, though not wild, they swam so "squan- 

 dered " that the shot stopped but five, and of these we 

 only secured three. The third occurrence was a single 



