GOLDEN-EYE. 167 



The Pochard is not common in Herefordshire ; it only 

 appears on the rivers and large ponds during the severe weather of 

 winter, and does not stay long. It has been killed occasionally in 

 severe weather. 



[Genus — Nyroca.] 



[Nyroca ferruginea — White-eyed Duck.] 



A spring straggler to the East of England. 



Genus— CLANGULA. 

 CLANGULA GLAUCION— Golden-eye. 



The clanging Golden-eye. 



Crabbe — Peter Grimes. 



This Drake, Golden-eye, is one of the most handsome and 

 conspicuous birds on ornamental waters, where it is easily kept and 

 becomes very tame. Small flocks arrive every winter at the 

 estuaries and mouths of rivers on the coast. It is a shy, wary 

 bird, and where five or six are feeding together, they never all dive 

 at the same time, so that one is always on guard. It is an expert 

 swimmer and diver. It lives chiefly on small fish, eels, snails, and 

 aquatic insects ; its flesh is not good in flavour. In Norway and 

 Lapland, where the Golden-eye breeds, it always chooses a hole in 

 a tree as its resting-place, and often at a considerable height above 

 the ground. 



The Golden-eye is a very rare visitor to the rivers in Hereford- 

 shire. The specimen in the Hereford Museum was shot on the 

 Wye, near Fawley, in T837 ; and another was shot at Weobley, in 

 1882, and brought to Mr. Newman, the bird-stuffer, in Hereford. 



Mr. W. C. Blake of Ross has a specimen of the Golden-eye 

 which was killed on the Wye in the winter of 1879. It 

 is a female bird. Another specimen has since been offered to 

 Mr. Blake, which was picked up dead near Ross, but it was too 

 much decomposed to preserve. 



