36 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



almost anywhere. What the}' chiefly like, however, are expanses 

 of deep, still water with plenty of weed on the bottom, and so 

 they are chiefly birds of broad sluggish reaches of rivers and 

 extensive lakes and jheels. They are found all through Northern 

 India east to Manipur, but do not commonly go south of the 

 Central Provinces, though said even to reach Ceylon occasionally. 

 They swim fast and dive well, getting much, if not most of their 

 food in this way daring their stay in India ; but they also 

 frequently feed in shallow water by turning end up, and generally 

 behaving like surface-feeding ducks, even coming ashore to feed ; 

 and it is a curious thing that in captivity, even on a large piece 

 of . water, they very seldom dive, although other pochards 

 constantly do so. They are less clumsy in shape than these, and 

 do not walk so awkwardly. 



The food is very varied, but more vegetable than animal ; 

 water-plants, grass, insects, frogs, and even small fish, all enter 

 into their menu. They are generally fat, and are sometimes as 

 good as any duck, but may also have what Hume calls a " rank, 

 marshy, froggy flavour." They are among the best sporting 

 l)irds in India, being wary and shy ; in fact, Hume considered 

 them the hardest to get at of all the ordinary quarry of the wild 

 fowler in the East. 



They are generally day-feeders, but also feed at night, and 

 are commonly siiot at flighting time, though then only in small 

 parties. The flocks usually contain both sexes, but occasionally 

 males only may constitute a flock. The sexes differ considerably 

 in their voice, the drake's note being a whistle — not the same, 

 however, as the wigeon drake's ; the duck's call is the usual Jiurr 

 of the females of the pochard group. 



The great distinctness of the sexes causes this bird to be 

 one of the few with different sex-names in the vernaculars ; in 

 Bengali the male is Hero, the female Chobra-lians ; in Nepalese 

 the words are different, Dumar for the male and Samoa for the 

 female ; the Sindhi liatoha applies to both sexes. 



The red-crested pochard is nowhere a duck of the high north; 

 it breeds as near us as Turkestan, and extends west through 

 Southern Europe to North Africa. India seems to be its chief 

 winter resort. In Britain it is rare as a wild bird, but well 



