28 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS 



diving goes I should say the common pochard is really the better 

 performer of the two. 



Although a very similar species inhabits North America besides 

 the canvas-back, this really has a yellow eye and seems to me 

 to be just separable after having seen live specimens ; so the 

 pochard may be reckoned as purely an Old- World bird. The 

 female is distinguished as Dunbird by English sportsmen, but 

 the same native names seem to apply to both sexes. Gheun is 

 used in Nepal and Tliordingnam in Manipur. 



Whitc-cycd Pochard. 



* Nijroca jerntginea. KarcJiiya, Hindustani. 



The little bright-chocolate white-eyed pochard is far the 

 commonest of Indian diving-ducks, and in winter may be looked 

 for anywhere south to Katnagiri and east to Manipur, but it is 

 more a northern than a southern bird with us, like all the 

 pochards. 



The white eye is only a masculine character, but develops 

 early, the female's ej^es being dark grey and not conspicuous. 

 Moreover she is not nearly so richly coloured as the drake, being 

 especially clouded with blackish about the head. The coloration, 

 however, is of the same general type, both giving the impression 

 of a small dark duck, showing no white except on the stern when 

 on the water, but displaying a conspicuous amount on the wings 

 when in flight. Young birds are not rich dark brown, but dirty 

 light brown, much like the colour of brown paper, certainly not 

 the gingery orange shown in the background figure in Hume's 

 plate. In all, the upper parts are darker and devoid of red tinge. 



This is not only the commonest but the smallest of Indian 

 pochards, seldom weighing much over a pound and a quarter, 

 hixcept in Kashmir, it is only a cold- weather bird, coming in 

 late in October. When in residence, they prefer before every- 

 thing water w^ell covered with weeds, or with plenty of rushes ; 

 just those places, in fact, which other diving-duck tend to steer 



Aythya vyrora on plate. 



