TUFTED POCHAED 33 



and flying fast and without undue effort. Its ways may be 

 studied to perfection within a hundred yards or so of the India 

 Ofhce, for in St. James's Park it lives and breeds in complete 

 liberty, and specimens visit all the London waters. 



In India it is a winter visitor only, and extends east to 

 Manipur and Burma, but not further south in India than North 

 Coimbatore. It was very connnonly brought into the Calcutta 

 Bazaar in my time, but could not compare in numbers with the 

 white-eyed pochard, which was by far the commonest diving- 

 duck to be met with there, and commoner than any of the 

 migrant ducks except garganey and common teal. I may here 

 observe that the light brown colour here attributed to young 

 tufted pochards may indicate a special Eastern race, or more 

 probably be due to fading under bright sunlight, for those 

 hatched in England fledge off as dark as the old female. I have, 

 however, seen two young English drakes which had assumed as 

 their first plumage the undress plumage of the old drake, which 

 in this stage has the white flanks obscured by a plentiful 

 pencilling of fine black lines, so that they look a smoky grey. 



In India the tufted pochard is seen in both small and very 

 large flocks ; it likes broad open water, and is very difficult to 

 ■shift from its chosen location on the first day of shooting, though 

 after a day's worrying it will not come back to be shot at again 

 like many other ducks ! It is a fast swimmer, and as a diver at 

 least equals the common red-headed pochard ; its evolutions 

 under water may be watched with profit in St. James's Park, 

 where it may be seen to go over a lot of ground before rising to 

 the top. Sometimes a flock will on Indian waters prefer to dive 

 rather than fly, in which case, if one's boat can be pushed on to 

 where they went down, they will afford a good many snap-shots — 

 at the risk of casualties from shot glancing off the water ! When 

 in pairs, the duck rises first, calling kerr as she goes. 



Although it greedily devours bread in semi-domestication, it 

 feeds mostly on animal food — water-snails, small fish, and so 

 forth — in the wild state, and appears never to feed on shore ; even 

 when petted in a park it seldom leaves the water for bread, and 

 its gait on land is particularly hobbling and awkward, much worse 

 .than that of the common pochard. It is a day-feeder, and in 

 3 



