BAER'S WHITE-EYED POCHARD 31 



the young birds, which in this species are dull light-brown as 

 in the last, but have a rusty tinge about the face and a distinct 

 black shade on the crown which is not found in young common 

 white-eyes. The difference is especially marked in the bill, 

 which is about half an inch longer in the eastern than in the 

 western white-eye ; in fact, the whole bird is longer and less 

 dumpy, though the family resemblance is most obvious and 

 close. 



Even in its ordinary wintering-places in China, the eastern 

 white-eye seems somewhat irregular in its occurrence, and little 

 is really known about it except that it breeds in East Siberia. 

 There has certainly been a considerable winter westward move- 

 ment of the species of late years, beginning apparently with the 

 year 1896, when it turned up in the Calcutta Market, by no 

 means an unexploited locality. The rush appeared to culminate 

 in the next winter, the birds then becoming gradually scarcer; 

 in 1902, up to December when I left India for good, there had 

 been none in ; but about February was about the likeliest date for 

 them ; in 189(3-7 they were as conmion as ordinary white-eyes. 

 Mr. Baker also got them, after the occurrence of the species 

 here was made known, from Cachar, Sylhet, near Bhamo, and 

 the Shan States, which is what one would expect, although the 

 birds do not seem to have been numerous, as they apparently 

 were in Bengal ; he only got three from Burma, for instance. 



Although not recorded on the Continent, the birds even 

 pushed as far as England, where two have been shot of late 

 years, one at Tring, and one while this book was being written, 

 in Notts. The only observation worth recording here I was able 

 to make on these birds, of which I kept several alive in the 

 museum tank, and got others for the Calcutta and London Zoos, 

 was that when kept full-winged in an aviary they rose as easily 

 as surface-feeding ducks ; this may mean they escape netting 

 much more than other pochards. I may also mention that the 

 note and courting gestures of the species are, as one would 

 expect, like those of its common ally, and it is certainly no 

 better to eat, according to those who have tried it. As con- 

 firming the view of those who attribute the abnormal lingering 

 of pairs of migratory birds in India to some injury incapacitating 



