LIFE HISTORIES OF XORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL. 185 



Casual records. — Has wandered on migrations northwest to southern 

 Alaska (Kodiak Island). 



Egg dates.— -CaMormfi, Colorado, and Utah: Twenty-seven records, 

 April 23 to July 7; fourteen records, May 24 to June 9. Minnesota 

 and North Dakota: Eighteen records, May 18 to June 28; nine 

 records, June 3 to 17. Manitoba and Saskatchewan: Nine records, 

 June 1 to July 6. 



AITHYIA FERINA (Linnaeus). 



EUROPEAN POCHAHD. 



HABITS. 



The common pochard of the Old World is closely related to our 

 redhead; authorities differ as to whether it is a distinct species or 

 only a subspecies. The American bird is larger, more intensely col- 

 ored and has black edges on the wing coverts which the European 

 bird lacks; our bird also lacks the black base of the bill, which is 

 conspicuous in the pochard. Audubon evidently regarded the two 

 birds as identical, and Wilson, although expressing some doubt, ap- 

 ])arently agreed with him. Nuttall followed their lead. 



Dr. Barton W. Evermann (1913) recorded the capture of a speci- 

 men of the European pochard on St. Paul Island, in the Pribilof 

 group, on May 4, 1912, which constitutes the first and, so far as I 

 know, the only record of the occurrence of this species in North 

 America. It was probably a straggler from its Asiatic range; it is 

 widely distributed in central Asia, as far east as Lake Baikal in 

 southern Siberia, and perhaps farther east. 



In compiling the life history of this species, which is entirely 

 unknown to me, I can not do better than to quote from the excellent 

 and very fuU account of it written by Mr. John G. Millais (1913). 

 Referring to the haunts of this pochard, he writes : 



The home of this pochard is largo, fresh-water lakes, or big reed-inclosed swamps with 

 deep water pools in the center, where they can dive for food and remain beyond the 

 reach of the gun. They are not adverse to still tidal estuaries, generally of bracldsh 

 water, but seem to regard the sea itself merely as a place of refuge when driven from 

 their true homes. Where pochards are most at home are large open stretches of fresh 

 water that contain wide areas that are not of too great a depth. They seem to like 

 lakes with rather muddy bottoms, where vegetation grows on pure sand, in which 

 there is an abundance of water insects and much molluecae. From such a center 

 they travel out at night to smaller ponds, and return at daybreak to their sanctuary. 

 This proves that the pochard is intelligent, and, like all diving ducks, first considers 

 its safety and then its food supply. In migration time, single birds or a few together 

 may be found in quite small pools, but tliey never stay long in such places, but pass 

 on until they find safety in numbers. As a rule, pochards keep well to the center of 

 a lake or offshore during the day, and are only to be seen diving near reed beds or 

 close to the banks of sluggish rivers, where they receive continuous protection. They 

 are at all times suspicious of man, and at once swim for deep water on the least 

 alarm. Even during gales they like to keep just out of shot of shore on the edge, as 



