POCHARD . 311 



Turkestan it visits India in large flocks during the winter-months ; 

 while a certain number of stragglers occasionally wander, at different 

 times of the year, to the eastern and south-eastern coasts of England, 

 among which a few extend their travels still farther westwards. The 

 number of such visitors is, however, but small, so that there may be 

 a question whether the species is entitled to the definite place here 

 assigned to it in the British list. Apparently the total number of 

 instances recorded of the occurrence of this species jduring the nineteenth 

 century was only nineteen, but as one of these visitations is stated 

 to have been represented by no less than eighteen individuals, the 

 claim of this pochard to a definite place in the list is at least as 

 good as that of the ruddy sheldrake. Moreover, a specimen, making 

 the twentieth, was taken in Suffolk in 1904. Of these twenty 

 records, Scotland and Ireland respectively claim but one each. In the 

 case of such an occasional straggler it will suffice to state that the 

 present species is one of the freshwater diving ducks, and that it 

 generally frequents, often in large flocks, open sheets of water where 

 there is good and sufficient covert on the banks. 



Pochard ^" several modern ornithological works the true 



(Nvroea ferina) pochard and its immediate relatives will be found 

 described under the generic name of Aytliya in 

 place of Nyroca, but since both these names were given in the same 

 year, it seems preferable to retain the one more generally in use. In 

 works of a more old-fashioned type the pochard, or dun-bird, as it is 

 locally called, is referred to as Fiiligula ferina. Although the pochards, 

 other than the red-crested species, are frequently divided into several 

 genera, they are here included in the single genus Nyroca. They are 

 all broadly distinguished from Netta by the fact that the beak does 

 not taper towards the tip, where it may, indeed, be wider than at 

 the base, and by the presence of only fourteen tail-feathers ; an 

 additional character being that the transverse plates on the under 

 surface of the upper half of the beak are shorter and less 

 prominent. 



The true pochard, which is one of the crestless species, is specially 

 characterised by the dull chestnut-colour of the head and neck of the 

 drake in breeding-plumage, and the distinct barring or lacing of the 

 back and scapular region. In addition to these features, it may be 

 mentioned that the beak is black with a leaden-blue band across the 

 middle, there is an inconspicuous grey wing-bar, the breast and upper 

 part of the back as well as the lower portion of the latter and the 



